Substance’s most moving scene is a microcosm of the entire film

The most grounded and emotionally realistic scene in The substance it also serves a dramatic purpose as a subtle microcosm of the entire film. From the twisted mind of writer and director Coralie Fargeat, The substance is a body horror masterpiece that uses a fictional beauty-enhancing drug as a satirical substitute for all the dangerous cosmetic procedures people undergo to hold on to their youth. As she begins to lose work after age 50, celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle begins taking this medication to improve her appearance (and it quickly spirals out of control).

For the most part, The substance takes place in a heightened reality. This is established early on when a thick layer of snow falls on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s set in a world where aerobics videos are still as popular as they were in the ’80s, where an FDA-approved drug leaves its user in a coma for weeks on end, and where a grotesque monster can walk down the street and no one will. wink. But there is a scene in The substance this is based on a deeply relatable emotional realism – and is symbolic of the entire film.

Elisabeth getting ready for a date is the most emotionally grounded scene in Substance

It’s painfully relatable for middle-aged women in dating

In the middle of the way The substanceas Elisabeth begins to be overshadowed by Sue, she desperately wants to feel attractive again. So she calls Fred, the old classmate who got emotional with her at the beginning of the film, to arrange a meeting for eight o’clock. While she is getting ready for the date, Elisabeth puts on a striking red dress and matches it with equally striking red lipstick. But The more she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, the less certain she is that she looks beautiful..

Every time she’s about to leave the apartment, she ends up going back to the mirror and reapplying her makeup. As the sequence progresses – and the clock gets closer and closer to eight – she begins to compare herself to Sue’s comatose body in the newly built bathroom cabinet. Sue’s pink lip gloss looks great, so Elisabeth applies pink lip gloss over her red lipstick. She ends up rethinking her appearance so much that she never goes away. the apartment. This is the most grounded and emotionally realistic scene in the film. It’s painfully relatable for middle-aged women in dating.

Elisabeth questioning her makeup and distorting her appearance is a microcosm of the entire film

She keeps trying to improve her appearance and actually looks worse and worse

This sequence is not only the most moving scene in the film; it’s also a microcosm of the entire film. Elisabeth keeps trying to improve her appearance throughout the montage, but she actually looks worse and worse every time she goes back to the bathroom mirror. This symbolizes the entire plot with the “Substance” serum. The more Sue is in the spotlight, the faster Elisabeth ages. And Sue’s good looks don’t last either, as her body eventually begins to fall apart. When she returns to the Substance, she transforms into a horrible monster.

One of the film’s main messages is that cosmetic enhancements ultimately do more harm than good. They are supposed to make people look and feel better, but they are destructive; Aging naturally always seems better than trying to slow down the aging process unnaturally. Elisabeth looked great in her original makeup, but the more she changed – and the younger she tried to look – the worse she looked. The rest of the film takes two and a half hours (and a lot of prosthetics) to make the same point.

Substance uses Cronenbergian body horror to capture social horrors

All the best horror films use their horror tropes and images as metaphors for social commentary. To go out is a horror metaphor for racism, Talk to me is a horror metaphor for drug addiction, and The substance is a horror metaphor for Hollywood’s unrealistic standards of beauty. The airbrushed images in movies and magazines make anyone who doesn’t look like Sue feel completely worthless, and This is the crux of Elisabeth’s arc in the film: she reaches the age that Hollywood’s powerful old white men consider to be her expiration date..

Hollywood’s unfair beauty standards are causing people to resort to extremes, such as getting Botox injections or covering their mouths while they sleep to slow the aging process. Elisabeth’s experiments with the Substance are an even more extreme exaggeration of these extreme measures. The substance uses gonzo Cronenbergian body horror to deliver a timely commentary on society’s absurd expectations of women.