The Substance (The substance in Spanish) turns out to be the perfect mix between the fear of losing beauty and an astute commentary on contemporary society. The film, directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Mooredraws its power in its allegorical meaning. Director and actress, they talk with Article14 about this film that premieres in Spain after winning the award for best script at the Cannes Film Festival and sweeping the United States box office.
Over the years, horror films have been used to examine everything from nuclear anxiety to economic inequality, with a unique ability to make effective social critiques. Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, an Oscar-winning actress who has a second chance and becomes a television fitness guru..
The first sequence of Fargeat’s film shows Elisabeth’s star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A star that goes from bright and shiny to worn, trampled and cracked: a brutal metaphor for the fate of any woman in Los Angeles. “I started writing this film while in Los Angeles,” explains Fargeat.
“I am fascinated by what Hollywood Boulevard represents, and I, who work with symbolism, decided to express that image. I started writing the best metaphor I could think of about how beauty has become a kind of prison with its promise of happiness, and when you lose it, you fall apart. For me, That’s Hollywood. A dream representation linked to appearance and how people see you. In the world of entertainment, there is this hyper scrutiny and also a superficial patina of happiness and joy. That element was the premise of a story that embodies everything that women face. Depending on your appearance, you will be valued or not valued and you will feel accepted or not accepted,” the director revealed to us in front of a espresso and a spectacular lunch.
Success on the Walk of Fame is symbolized by a starred tile on the floor. “It is a very powerful symbol. When the star meets expectations, he is loved, adored, admired and everyone looks at him. When it starts to wrinkle, the star gets dirty. Getting older means not conforming to the standard of beauty. We all sin because we forget those stars. People stop caring and treat her like a piece of trash. I wanted to play with an idea as simple as it was devastating. That image represents the violence of being valued or not valued, depending on what you represent or what the world you represent decides, you are seen or you are not seen,” adds Fargeat.
Still from ‘The substance’, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley
It’s ironic that Demi Moore, who has been a star for four decades, once the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, He does not have a star on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame. “It’s true, I don’t have any,” she says, smiling as she hugs her small dog on her lap. “That detail fascinated me about the script. In Hollywood the walk of stars is a symbol that belongs to our collective mind. Everyone who comes to Los Angeles visits it, everyone has an idea of what it is like, even those who have never been there because they have seen it in movies. It is an enormous cultural and social symbol that embodies many of the themes that the film deals with,” explained the actress.
As a woman, it is impossible not to feel empowered by the film, but to see it as a woman over 40 years old It elevates its meaning exponentially. “I feel like Elisabeth because I am upset with society’s strict beauty standards.”and I admit that sometimes I am tired of fighting them. For me, many of the scenes were a personal challenge,” reveals Demi Moore. Dressed in blue striped jeans, a jacket, black-rimmed glasses and her hair down, the actress admits that this film was a form of expression of freedom. “It has been liberating to film a film that so freely shows society’s prejudice against aging. “I really admire what Coraline has done.”
It took the filmmaker two years to finish a script that she started on her 40th birthday. “It is a fable in which I show what I experienced when I began to think that I had stopped being young and sexy.”that they were going to erase me from public space, that no one was going to be interested in me, that I was no longer going to have any job. “I couldn’t say I experienced it in a real way in my life, but those thoughts were absolutely real in my mind,” says Fargeat.
The fact that the film features Demi Moore, a woman who has established beauty standards, may confuse the viewer because most women can never be like her at any age. “The last thing I want with this film is for it to become a new mandate for women to not feel good about themselves. It is the evolution of the journey. I wish that We women were allowed to feel comfortable. It’s not our fault if we don’t feel well, everything around us is responsible for it. We need changes in society, to help us all get out of this prison that we have built for ourselves,” explains the French director.
Like Elisabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore agrees to take Brat-green liquid, a treatment that allows her to split between her current self and a younger version named Sue.played by Margaret Qualley. Upon reading the script, Demi Moore says she knew the film could go in two directions: a success or a disaster. “But that’s what you look for as an artist,” admits the actress, who had to leave her comfort zone to accept the role. “It is a raw story, a reality that shows the worst in everyone. For me it has been the opportunity to participate in a project that can change the way the audience thinks.”
“I was brutal with my body”
Wrapped in a delicate pastel pink is the tragedy of this woman who ends up becoming her worst enemy. Elisabeth is underestimated and marginalized due to her age. Despite decades of success and celebrity status, she ends up being rejected by a man, her producer, played by the actor Dennis Quaid. Addressing expectations about women’s bodies in the ’90s, Moore said that back then women were not considered attractive unless they were thin. “I didn’t treat myself well, while filming this film I saw how brutal I was with my body”. Demi Moore is hopeful that the film can help us as a society. “The powerful thing about this story is that it gives us the opportunity to understand that we have the ability to change.”
For the transformation of the character, a sharp representation of body horror, the director was inspired by many of the monstrous figures that make up the social imagination. “I studied many representations of monsters in movies like Quasimodo. I also fed on artists who make sculptures and create their own monsters. I also studied the Disney of our childhood. There are figures of witches, but also elephants dancing with their ballet slippers. I was interested in all these representations of the monstrous, of what is considered ridiculous, or the opposite of the beautiful princess, who represents the ideal. “I think we all grew up with the myth of the beautiful, blonde, thin princess who would be saved by the prince.”
Demi Moore in the movie ‘The Substance’
These myths and cultural images shape the reality of how we feel about ourselves. and how we feel we fit in or not. They are definitely powerful cultural weapons,” Fargeat confesses, before Demi Moore sentences: “Judging ourselves, chasing perfection, trying to get rid of defects, feeling rejected and desperate, None of this is exclusive to women. We’ve all had moments where we’ve tried to fix something, and made it worse to the point of being incapacitated. “We are concentrating on small unimportant things and we need to think that our value is not just in our appearance, if we continue like this we will feel devastated.”
