The Substance
- Issi Israel Doron
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
I hate horror movies. Truly. It is perhaps the only film genre I actively avoid. Still, given the significance of The Substance for the field of gerontology, watching it felt less like a choice and more like a professional obligation.
The Substance is a body-horror film written, co-produced, and directed by Coralie Farget, starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid—each delivering exceptional performances. The premise is straightforward: Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), an aging celebrity, is unceremoniously dismissed from her long-running TV show on her 50th birthday. She is deemed “too old,” while her boss (Quaid) hungers for something “new”: young, sexy, and easily marketable.
In her despair, Elisabeth turns to a black-market drug—“the substance”—that allows her to generate a younger version of herself, Sue (Qualley). The catch? Youth comes in strict one-week increments. One week as Sue must be followed by a week as Elisabeth, in an endlessly repeating cycle. As Elisabeth trades pieces of her “older” life for brief flashes of youth and fame, the façade begins to crumble. The psychological tug-of-war between the older Elisabeth and her younger self spirals into unexpected conflicts, transformations, and side effects that blur the line between metaphor and body horror.
So, is it a good gerontological movie? I have many thoughts about the film overall (it’s too long, not exactly terrifying, and the grotesque body elements sometimes feel unnecessary), but I want to focus on its gerontological value.
In that respect, it is remarkable. This is one of the most powerful, visceral portrayals I have seen of the intersection of ageism and sexism. Anyone who teaches or studies these topics could easily use the film’s opening ten minutes as an introduction to how these forces operate and how they are experienced in real life. The film offers countless creative, incisive, and deeply cinematic expressions of the social pressures that shape the bodies, identities, and perceived worth of aging women.
A practical note: if you dislike horror or body-horror films, you can comfortably watch the movie and stop before the last ten minutes. Up until then, the horror elements are manageable—and, frankly, the final sequence adds little to the gerontological message.
To conclude: The Substance is, in many ways, a cultural artifact. It deserves a place in the entrance hall of “The Museum of Ageing”—a vivid, unsettling reminder of how our society constructs, values, and distorts women’s aging bodies.
2025
USA
Director: Coralie Farget
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