This Film Forces You To Think About Your Relationship With Aging | My Thoughts On The Substance
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Aging is a complicated topic. Some people start to think about it when they are teenagers. Some will do anything to prevent it from happening. They buy expensive skincare, partake in questionable diets, and even undergo cosmetic procedures to prolong their youthful look. Others don’t think about it at all, and that is how I felt about aging until I saw The Substance (2024). This film forces you to think about aging and how you view yourself in society. Everyone has some anxiety connected with getting older, even if you don’t believe you do.
About The Substance
Mubi
Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? You. Only better in every way. Seriously. You've got to try this new product. It's called the Substance. It changed my life. It generates another you. A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect you. And there's only one rule: you share time. One week for you. One week for the new you. Seven days each. A perfect balance. Easy, right? If you respect the balance...what could possibly go wrong? - Summary from IMDB
Life as Elisabeth - Her life is over
Mubi
Elisabeth feels like her life is over. She was fired from her job because, at her age, she was no longer useful to the producers. The producers are jaded and want a younger, hotter woman who exudes purity and innocence while also being sexy.
Elisabeth doesn’t have the best posture when walking down the street in public. She is not confident in her body and covers much of it, even though she lives in sunny California. She wears sunglasses to hide the facial features that could show her age, and no one stops and stares at her. Once she takes the Substance, she rots around her apartment until she can be Sue again.
Mubi
She doesn’t go out, uses food as comfort, and binges on large amounts of it in front of the TV. She constantly checks to see when the food supply runs out so she can return to being Sue, and the most heartbreaking thing is that she only writes on the calendar the days when she is Sue, not when she is Elisabeth.
Life As Sue - Her Life Is Perfect
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Sue is supposed to be the best version of Elisabeth. While the film emphasizes that Sue is the best version of Elisabeth because she is younger, I argue that it’s because she is younger but also because she is perfect. Some people criticize the movie’s emphasis on Sue’s body; many think it is borderline objectification. But I don’t think it is. The film is telling us that Sue is PERFECT.
Sue has the perfect butt, the perfect breasts, the perfect size for clothing, the perfect hair, the perfect skin and teeth, and so much more. Her body is the embodiment of perfection, and that perfection gets you a lot in life, as we start to see later in the film.
Mubi
As someone who has been looking for a full-time job for the past two years, how fast she got the job angered me because her looks spoke for herself. Was she perfect for the job? Yes, but it seemed like she didn’t have to do much to get it, which many would argue happens in real life. She can take every other week off too, which, let's be honest, if you looked and acted like her, you could probably ask for something similar.
Sue is innocent yet sexy, which is a fantasy for many. When she leaves the apartment, she dresses in short skirts and crop tops, confidently walks, and gets many stares. Elisabeth believes that she can only wear such things when she is Sue because it is socially acceptable for her to do so.
The Most Disturbing Part of the movie wasn’t the body horror
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One person, I believe his name was Fred, was interested in getting to know Elisabeth better. They went to school together, and because it had been so long since they had seen each other, she didn’t recognize him at first. However, he recognized her and offered to go out on a date. She took him up on his offer, but before the date, she got in her head about how she was supposed to present herself, and honestly, this was the saddest moment in the film.
She put on a cute outfit and decided to wear dramatic makeup for the evening, but as she was about to leave, she overthought the look, covered her chest with a scarf, rubbed off all of the makeup, started again, did her hair, and did her makeup again. Ultimately, she got frustrated, stayed home, and ghosted Fred.
Watching Elisabeth hate anything she does to herself to look nice is heartbreaking. She feels as though she is past the point in her life to do such things, and no amount of makeup and no type of clothing will fix the ugliness she feels and ‘sees’ in the mirror. It’s body dysmorphia at its finest, and I empathized with this scene, and it will stick with me for a very long time.
The Colors & Liminal Spaces
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I loved the heck out of the colors in this film, which is coming from a girl who wears all black. It was just very aesthetically pleasing to look at.
The liminal spaces were the scariest part of The Substance for me. The body horror was disturbing, but the creepy, vast, empty spaces made my skin crawl. When Elisabeth went to obtain her first batch of The Substance, it was very jarring going from a dark hallway to a bright, medicinal-looking room. Also, the bathroom at her apartment gave off the same vibes.
final thoughts
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It’s heartbreaking to know that many women feel this way about themselves, like they are not worth anything because they are not young anymore. It’s sad to know some women view themselves as disgusting and can no longer contribute to society and that no one finds them attractive anymore.
This film forces you to confront any feelings you have about getting older. Whether you are in your 20s or 60s, you can connect with this film.
Before I watched this film, I thought I didn’t have a relationship with aging. I felt that I just never thought about it. But I do, all the time.
I wonder if I am too old to enjoy fandom or apply to specific jobs. Sometimes, I wonder if I wasted my prime years obtaining a degree that got me one full-time job, which laid me off a year and a half later and never helped me get another. I also wonder if I am wasting my 20s by myself because, as a young woman who likes older women, I will soon be too old for them.
Oops, I got a bit too personal there, sorry about that 😅
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Hi! I’m Andrea, the creator of Cinematic Excursions.
I am a video editor, photographer, travel and events vlogger, and blogger who likes to write movie analyses and yap about fandom. I also have a useless film degree.
I have been creating videos since 2018. In 2023, I started Cinematic Excursions to share my unfiltered experiences traveling, cruising, going on excursions, and using city cards that are supposed to save money.
I also use my platform to document my experience attending events like New York Comic-Con, MCM Comic-Con London, and the Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival, advising others and covering news from these events.
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