The Substance: A Visceral Exploration of Aging, Appetite, and the Female Body

In the newly released film "The Substance," director Coralie Fargeat presents a goulash of satire and body horror, exploring the brutality leveled against the female body as it ages. The story follows Elisabeth Sparkle, an Oscar-winning actress who finds herself unceremoniously replaced by a younger starlet at her network. Desperate to reclaim her youth, Elisabeth undergoes a transformation that forces her to confront the societal pressures and self-loathing that come with growing older in the public eye.

A Provocative Exploration of Food, Femininity, and the Aging Process

The Shrimp Incident and the Onset of Elisabeth's Downfall

Not long after Elisabeth's 50th birthday, her boss, the boorish Harvey, delivers the news of her termination over a plate of shrimp. The spectacle of Harvey scarfing down the shrimp heads with such abandon foreshadows the integral role food will play in the film's provocative statement on the female body. Elisabeth, meanwhile, does not eat, her steely expression wavering between despondency and rage as she faces the prospect of being replaced by a younger woman.

The Substance and the Destructive Cycle of Dependence

Desperate to reclaim her youth, Elisabeth injects herself with a drug that allows her to inhabit the body of a twentysomething named Sue. However, this comes at a cost, as she must swap corporeal forms every seven days, a process that involves hooking the vacant body up to feeding packs. If she deviates from this routine, both of her bodies will suffer the consequences.

Food as a Vessel for Visceral Imagery and Symbolic Meaning

Food feels intrinsic to the film's visual language from the very first frame, with a close-up of an egg yolk spontaneously birthing another version of itself. This motif of transformation and duality sets the stage for the film's exploration of the female body and its relationship with food. As Elisabeth's transformation progresses, her resentment towards her younger avatar, Sue, manifests through a growing obsession with food, leading to grisly and viscerally repulsive sequences.

The Gendering of Hunger and the Punishment of the Female Appetite

The film's treatment of food reflects a broader commentary on the societal pressures and double standards faced by women, particularly as they age. Elisabeth's ravenous appetite is seen as a transgression, a rejection of the docile femininity expected of her. As she indulges her cravings, her body punishes her, with Sue sometimes waking up to find the remnants of Elisabeth's binge-eating sessions. The film genders hunger with precision, drawing parallels to recent literary works that explore the messy dimensions of the female appetite.

The Cookbook and the Weaponization of Food

The film's climax sees Elisabeth unwrapping a goodbye present from her former boss: a cookbook titled "French Cuisine from A to Z: 26 Recipes From the Greatest French Chefs." This catalog of caloric density becomes a tool of Elisabeth's self-flagellation, as she wields it like a witch's spellbook, defying the expectations of precious docility placed upon women in the kitchen. The subsequent sequence in the kitchen is a far cry from the symphonic cooking sequences often depicted in cinema, as Elisabeth's performance becomes an act of cruelty against herself and her younger counterpart, Sue.

The Substance as a Twisted Progeny of Canonical Food Films

The Substance can be seen as the twisted progeny of two canonical food films: La Grande Bouffe and Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. While it shares the excess of the former, the film's spirit is more akin to the feminist masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, where the main character's domestic drudgery culminates in a shocking act of murder. In The Substance, Elisabeth metes out punishment towards her younger self through a relentless pursuit of food, expediting the inevitable decline that awaits all women in a society determined to deny them control over their own bodies.The Substance is a challenging and bleak exploration of the female experience, where eating becomes not an act of pleasure, but a means of wresting control over a body that the world seeks to punish. Fargeat's film is a visceral and uncompromising examination of the cruelties faced by women as they age, and the ways in which they can become both the victims and the agents of such cruelty against themselves.