Woman of Substance

Growing up in the 1990s, Demi Moore was easily one of the most recognisable female actors. In Ghost (1990) she showed the world that a “pixie haircut” could be one of beauty and allure. With Patrick Swayze she launched a million memes (before that was a thing) of working at a potter’s wheel. Even today no one can think of a potter’s studio without recalling their sculpting and coupling in unison. Two years later there was A Few Good Men where she teamed up with Tom Cruise to take down Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson) in a battle that was pitted as honour versus truth. In 1995 she also became the world’s highest-paid actress. In the ’90s, she was also married to the leading action hero of that time Bruce Willis, and then made news when she got together with Ashton Kutcher who was 15 years younger. It is safe to say that she has lived her life in the limelight.

When 62-year-old Moore won a Golden Globe Award for best performance by a female actor in a musical or comedy for The Substance many were surprised that this was the first major award she’d won in a career spanning nearly five decades. At the start one must say that The Substance written and directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat is neither a comedy nor a musical. Rather it is a horror-sci-fi film with a social message.

In her (now famous) acceptance speech, Moore spoke about how a producer three decades ago had titled her a “popcorn actress,” meaning she could rake in the moolah at the box-office but that she was not award worthy. She “bought into” that narrative, and thought that such recognition would never come her way. She then thanked all those who believed in her when she did not believe in herself. To watch The Substance is to understand her speech. The movie tells the story of an aging actress Elisabeth Sparkle who has tasted fame and success but is then told by a loutish executive, “After 50, it stops.” When she asks him what the ‘it’ is, he stammers and stumbles and we the audience are subject to his uncouthness as we must watch him chew with his mouth open and eat with all his ten fingers. The ‘it’ is never spelled out, but we all know what ‘it’ is.

The Substance is not a movie of delicacy or subtlety. Instead, it often feels like a Tarantino film with Barbie messaging. In a desperate bid for relevance, Sparkle takes a black-market drug that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. This younger self (Sue) is played with abandon by Margaret Qualley. If the television executives find Moore old and haggardly, in Sue they find perfection and dynamism.

The movie is essentially a critique of society’s expectations about women and their bodies. Here the camera doesn’t caress the bodies of Moore and Qualley, instead it embalms them. The up-close angles of their naked bodies suffocates the audience. But this discomfort is essential. And the discomfort often morphs into queasiness as this body horror movie dowses the audience in litres of blood and forces us to see oozing pustules and bulging protrusions. It takes the idea of a woman not being enough and delivers it with so much bombast and bloodshed that we are forced to see the absurdity of female standards of beauty.

Moore is no regular 60-year-old woman. With her perfectly toned body (she has been obsessive about fitness for years), she would give any younger actor a run for their money. The scene where she readies to leave for a date, but then does not as she is never happy with her appearance, is both painful and relatable. Even if one has not personally rubbed off lipstick or smeared mascara over one’s face with a vengeance, everyone knows the feeling of being unhappy with one’s reflection.

The Substance is not an easy watch. But in its over-the-top script and its absurd bloodbath at the end it forces one to reckon with the absurdity of ageism and the injustice of sexism. With the Golden Globe, Moore has got the recognition she deserves, and she now knows for sure that she is ‘enough’. Whether the Oscars heed her, is yet to be seen.

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