{"id":365,"date":"2025-02-06T08:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T15:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/?p=365"},"modified":"2025-02-06T08:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T15:38:11","slug":"film-review-the-substance-2024-a-love-letter-to-self-hatred-by-taylor-wingrave-hanna-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/2025\/02\/06\/film-review-the-substance-2024-a-love-letter-to-self-hatred-by-taylor-wingrave-hanna-film-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Review\u00a0“The Substance”\u00a0(2024): A Love Letter to Self-Hatred\u00a0By: Taylor Wingrave Hanna\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you haven\u2019t been following film in 2024 (or if you avoid the world of horror at all costs) you may have somehow missed the buzz following\u00a0The Substance<\/em>. The film has garnered global acclaim \u2013 and disgust \u2013 for its scathing, relentless depiction of the pursuit of perfection. The Substance\u00a0<\/em>follows the beautiful, successful Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a 50-year-old exercise show host. Upon reaching \u2018middle age\u2019, she is informed that she has met her expiry date by her seedy TV producer, Harvey (Dennis Quaid). The audience acts as voyeurs along with her as she\u2019s dismissed, watching helplessly as Harvey mentions the demise of her career over a casual phone call. A once respected and powerful woman, Liz is discarded and offered a French cookbook as a mocking indictment of her age. Since she is now past her prime, she has been banished to the sexless realm of domesticity and homemaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is Liz\u2019s subsequent car crash, however, that acts as the film\u2019s catalyst. While visiting with the doctor, a conventionally attractive young man slips her a note, encouraging her to seek out \u2018the substance\u2019 \u2013 a cosmetic surgery breakthrough that promises a younger, better, \u2018more perfect\u2019 version of oneself. After an initial refusal, she orders the substance in a moment of weakness, and we watch her\u00a0literally\u00a0stoop to a lower, degrading level and crawl into an abandoned storage facility to retrieve it. The image of this woman, once \u2018perfect\u2019 (beautiful, successful, famous), getting on the ground and awkwardly maneuvering through a dirty, seedy doorway is a powerful and evocative one; the viewer is forced to watch as she sows the seeds of her own destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>After a gut-wrenching, horrific birthing scene (a\u00a0very\u00a0tame preview of things to come) the \u2018better\u2019 version of Liz makes her first appearance \u2013 a young, slim, strikingly beautiful woman who names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley). Sue represents the all-American beauty ideal and quickly lands the new host role on Liz\u2019s old show. Liz, meanwhile, gives in to the societal expectation that women past their \u2018prime\u2019 must stay home and out of the spotlight. We watch as Liz resorts to sitting on a couch and lifelessly watching TV, allowing a mess of discarded trash and rotten food to engulf her. Liz\u2019s deterioration, both physical and emotional, is one of the most devastating things I have witnessed in recent film.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Her apathy turns to rage when the billboard directly facing her apartment is updated from an image of her in her former glory to an image of the new \u201cIt girl.\u201d A war breaks out among Liz and her alter ego; Sue has become her own individual and gradually drains more and more life force from Liz to maintain her own lifestyle. Liz is appalled at what she has become but ultimately cannot bring herself to eliminate Sue as she is the \u2018best part\u2019 of her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>What follows Liz\u2019s heartbreaking conclusion is an experience that can only\u00a0truly\u00a0be had by watching the film for yourself (if you have a strong stomach). From there, the film proceeds to its dreamlike finale of ultra-gory arthouse weirdness, showing, once and for all, that bodies are just that \u2013 physical flesh vessels. Our minds (and souls, if you have spiritual inclinations) are what truly give value to the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Yet, if you go on social media and search for\u00a0The Substance, you will be bombarded with posts praising Margaret Qualley\u2019s beauty and even tutorials on how to look more like Sue. Did we miss the point?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the credits rolled, I knew that my brain had just undergone a transformation. My view of physical beauty and the cosmetic industry had been completely altered forever.\u00a0We are all Liz<\/em>. Some of us just have the resources and are willing to go further in our pursuit of perfection than others. That is, unless we can break this cycle of insecurity and try something new, something intellectual, something that forces us to look within ourselves to find purpose. It is up to each of us to decide how we will enable or dismantle the beauty industry, and hopefully\u00a0The Substance\u00a0<\/em>will be able to bring a new perspective to the next generation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u2019t been following film in 2024 (or if you avoid the world of horror at all costs) you may have somehow missed the buzz following\u00a0The Substance. The film Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-review","category-non-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/449"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/the-write-stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}