The Substance: A Parable of the Shadow

The Substance. How much meaning is packed into this word lately. Coralie Fargeat’s film has managed to cause such a stir and garner so many reactions that it’s strange how we ever lived without it before. The reactions, however, are divided, from the hysterical “Don’t watch this garbage!” to the admiring “The film blew my mind and made me rethink my attitude towards myself!” I fall into the second category, so this review will be positive: it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Let’s discuss what “The Substance” represents from a metaphysical and esoteric perspective. It has a lot of hidden messages related to our topic, because the film’s main idea is the resource problems of those who can’t accept themselves. And that’s a favorite area of exploration for the Archaic project.

I sincerely believe that resource is the foundation of everything. Any activity, achievement, and even life itself. Not experience, not intellect, not knowledge, not luck, but resource: if you have fuel, you’ll catch up with the rest along the way. If your fuel is wasted on nonsense, you won’t get anywhere, even with ideal licenses, skills, and a super car.

I want to emphasize immediately that “The Substance” isn’t a linear story, but a parable. A film-metaphor, which is quite simple and beautiful, without being overly intellectual or suffering from the Syndrome of Seeking Deep Meaning in blue curtains. The deep meaning here is right on the surface; the message is just conveyed in the form of a parable, which many people have problems with, judging by the comments. This now half-forgotten genre causes dissonance and misunderstanding among the “hamsters”, because they get confused if information doesn’t resemble TikTok and isn’t presented directly.

The parable genre itself, its essence, lies in presenting some information allegorically, telling a beautiful, stirring story, while actually conveying something completely different in the background. It’s a very archaic thing, similar to folk tales and fables, where the moral is presented through relatable images and empathy, emotions, rather than droning on directly. We tell stories about bunnies in the forest while conveying the idea of friendship and mutual help.

In terms of genre, the film is a body horror; it has a lot of gore, blood, wrinkled old joints, and close-ups of fallen teeth, but it’s filmed VERY beautifully. I don’t know how the director managed to film such awfulness in such a beautiful way… But every frame of “The Substance” is like a postcard that could be hung on the wall in a frame. The beauty of the frame and the repulsiveness of its meaning stun the brain, and that’s very captivating. It’s a film that’s hard to forget or unsee. It’s especially worth noting that there are no special effects in the film; it uses very complex makeup and prosthetics, which creates an incredibly realistic sense of what’s happening. This isn’t CGI with drawn splashes of blood; you believe in what you’re seeing.

“The Substance” tells a story about the pursuit of youth, but it conveys the idea of the Jungian Shadow and the unwillingness to be your own self, which leads us to our favorite topic of self-creation and stealing resources from ourselves. So, while watching this film, turn your rationality off and don’t ask questions like, “Oh come on, how did she get that job without documents?!” Just watch it as a fairy tale for adults. For adults who have long been very confused about themselves, don’t love themselves, and desperately want to be someone else, while constantly suffering from “unexplained” illnesses. The film acts as a harsh, shocking reset of self-perception and provides such valuable “different angles” in working with yourself that many therapists couldn’t even dream of.

“The Substance” is about a Hollywood superstar, actress Elizabeth Sparkle, who once shone brightly, had Oscars, lots of fans, and a star on the Walk of Fame. But now she’s over 50 and quickly becoming obsolete. Her star has cracked, and nobody is fixing it (no one cares), the Oscar was 30 years ago, the fans have dispersed, there are no roles… And the aging star is left completely alone, and without a job. She hosts a pathetic morning show and appears in toothpaste commercials to make ends meet. But her soul is completely dark, and we feel very sorry for her. The director will later play with our pity in the most cruel way, just wait! The film is full of small hidden hints that don’t reveal themselves right away, and I’ll also touch upon them a bit further down.

The events begin with Elizabeth losing this job as well, specifically because of her “age.” The actress, played by Demi Moore, looks great, she’s still beautiful, but she’s almost 60, and the producer wants “fresh meat.” And he states directly that they’re not a charity to support old ladies at the expense of ratings. And the day ends with her sitting alone in a hospital room, sobbing, realizing that her life is over. That’s when a doctor who works for a secret organization involved in genetic engineering approaches her. Elizabeth is offered to become young again, a better version of herself, and the company insists that this is not about cosmetics or just another supplement. It’s much more interesting.

After much consideration, the actress agrees. She’s given an address of some warehouse in an abandoned building, where, without any data, only under numbers, she can pick up a pack of the “Substance” preparation and become one of the testing group. For free. But at this point, it’s still unclear what awaits the heroine. Inside the box there are bunch of IV drips, some bags of liquids, syringes, tubes… And a laconic manual that reminds her on almost every page that “you and she are the same, you two are not different people”. Who is this “she”?

Elizabeth injects herself and faints in her bathroom. And from a crack in her back, a whole new Elizabeth emerges. Not exactly the same, but very similar, and also possessing the consciousness, memory, and all the skills of the real Elizabeth. The girl is dazzlingly beautiful and young; she examines herself in the bathroom mirror and then looks with horror at her old body. The old, wrinkled body of the 60-year-old woman is motionless and awkwardly sprawled on the floor, on the cold tile, sharply contrasting with the fresh and rosy clone. The manual claims that both versions must switch places every week and maintain a balance of energy expenditure and resource use. The old body needs to be connected to an IV drip so that it lies in suspended animation and receives nutrition, while resting. The new body can do whatever it wants, the main thing is to transfer some spinal fluid from the old one and also rest.

That is, the New Elizabeth must drain some resource from the Old one every few days; only then does she feel great and not fall apart. Otherwise, her nose starts bleeding, and she weakens. And the Old one needs to be protected and given rest so that she can produce resources for both of them.

Both ladies have the same psyche, memory, and experience, but their minds aren’t synchronized; they think and act autonomously. This is the first hidden message I noticed.

The second hidden hint is the position of the old body. The Young one haphazardly inserts the IV drip into the Old one and simply leaves her lying naked on the tiled bathroom floor. It doesn’t occur to her to move “herself” to the couch, cover her with a blanket, or generally take care of the second body. Instead, she runs to the movie studio, where she passes the coveted casting on her first try. Well, of course! She has the knowledge and experience of a wise, older woman, and at the same time, a beautiful face and a round, fresh heart-shaped butt. How could she not pass anywhere?

But, 7 days fly by like a dream, and it’s time for the bodies to switch. The Young Elizabeth, lying something at work, puts herself on an IV drip, falling into suspended animation. The Old one gets up from the floor, completely horrified by her numb and frozen body, pain, and a grogginess level of a nightmare. By the way, she leaves the Young one on the floor too. This moment initially bothered me, but later I realized it wasn’t a bug, but a feature.

The “old woman” has to warm herself up for a long time and then go get new IVs and doses of supporting substances. She feels terrible, but tech support responds that everything is normal, and she just needs to synchronize with the new body. Learn to maintain a balance so as not to waste extra resources of the old version. And once again it is repeated that you are one, she is you, remember this. Just find a balance!

Then the crazy fun begins. The young Elizabeth, having skyrocketed to stardom and a ton of cash, completely loses her head. She throws parties, comes home in the morning, drinks, sleeps with young hunks… After all, any fatigue and bags under her eyes disappear after one injection of spinal fluid from the old body! Why save it?! And most importantly, she gradually just doesn’t care about the balance and resources of the Old Elizabeth, constantly increasing the time of her activity and the doses of spinal fluid that she squeezes out of the basic body and injects into herself. And yes, the liquid, like the Qi resource in reality, will simply run out one day, which is perfectly shown in the end.

The young woman creates another hidden and dark room in her bathroom, where she simply throws the “old lady”, locking her up in the dark, still naked on the cold floor. This is the third hidden message, take note.

And the further it goes, the more the Old version starts to crumble before our eyes. A sort of Dorian Gray 2.0, because he didn’t actually take injections from the portrait. From the constant draining of “Qi” and the imbalance of rest and activity, Elizabeth ages and deteriorates literally in months; she loses all her hair, teeth, and goes blind… But, since the versions don’t intersect and can’t talk directly, a real silent conflict arises between them. The Old one, waking up, eats like a glutton, making up for years of dieting, and then leaves a bunch of leftovers and a trashed apartment for the Young one. The Young one, in turn, leaves the Old one a pile of garbage and the aftermath of noisy parties with mountains of bottles and condoms. And both roughly throw each other onto the floor, experiencing hatred towards their other version of themselves.

I won’t retell the entire film and the ending here; you should watch it yourself. But even this base is enough for us to analyze.

What do we see here? Aside from the obvious satire on the “arms race” in the beauty industry and cinema, as well as the idea of not accepting one’s appearance, there is something else here.

In psychology, there’s a concept called the Shadow. Introduced by the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung and still very popular today. The Shadow represents those aspects of the personality that a person prefers not to acknowledge or completely reject in themselves, because they don’t conform to their self-image or the social expectations around them. In simpler terms, the Parade Personality hides from everyone those sides of itself that it considers bad and shameful (or was taught to believe so), often even from itself. It’s not always something bad; a person can “lock in a dark closet” not only greed or jealousy but also their own pride, self-respect, talents, love for oneself, and love in general, emotions… Anything that’s shameful to show the world. And the part of the personality that’s forever locked in the dark and consists of rejected qualities is called the Shadow.

It is unbearably painful to work with it, but only this way can we really create and balance ourselves, our personality, and its parameters. Otherwise, you’ll only be left with the half-eaten scrap that you created “for show” and for others. To let the others interact with you comfortably. But that’s only half of you!

The film, it seems to me, is openly playing with this very idea. That a bright, “for everyone” parade personality essentially denies its other aspect; it hates it, hides it from view, and doesn’t care for it at all. Considering it something disgusting, outlived, and generally shameful (the scene with the interview). The Parade version dreams that the other part of personality would just not exist, that it would disappear along with its hang-ups! At the same time, it lives on its resources and directly vampires it, giving nothing in return. The Shadow, which receives neither attention nor warmth, but only kicks and weakness from the draining of Qi, begins to take revenge from there, from the dark closet.

This manifests primarily as illnesses and psychosomatics, and at the most inopportune moments. You’re looking so good at a date or an interview, and “that creature” (your body) suddenly triggers diarrhea, migraine, pain, and other joys that ruin your day. And you curse this damn meat as if it lives its own life and never tells you what it wants from you, in the end.

And speaking of extra weight. In the film, the original Elizabeth had been on diets for years, but when she was locked up at home, she began to eat everything in sight, gobbling up, with greed. Even though her parade version was very concerned about herself and her weight. That is, it’s the Shadow that’s eating and gaining weight, an interesting metaphor, right? Psychosomatics very often include extra weight and swelling “out of nowhere,” when a person isn’t really overeating but can’t lose weight due to psychological blocks. The blocks pull hormones, and hormones can directly block both weight loss and gain. Some, through the same mechanism, can’t gain it; the inside of their personality doesn’t want to eat and rejects everything on principle.

Does this sound familiar? You’re fighting, and your body seems to be deliberately collapsing in the opposite direction, and you don’t hear each other, as if you don’t even intersect. “The Substance” takes this idea to a grotesque absurdity, showing you and your Shadow as two different personas in conflict. Each half suffers greatly, but it doesn’t even occur to either of them to simply establish contact with the other. To exhale and finally treat yourself humanely, cover yourself with a blanket, take care of yourself, give a little warmth. No. The Shadow is kicked into the closet, and if it tries to “act up”, it’s punished and even attempts are made to destroy it. The Shadow itself takes full revenge on the Parade Personality for devouring its resources while ignoring the balance of their shared life.

The most powerful scene of the film isn’t even the fight or the final monster. It’s the conversation of the Old Elizabeth with the Corporation’s tech support. Where she literally screams into the phone that “this scum has completely gone out of control, she’s killing me, she’s this, she’s that, she, she…” and she’s told that there is no “she.” “She” is you. That is, you are the one behaving like this, you are acting like this, you are doing all this, you’re not thinking about the comfort of others (even your own parts), and you are living only for yourself. “She” is you and there is no separate “She.” And the heroine suddenly falls silent, clenches her teeth, and quietly says, well yes, it’s me, it’s me… And it suddenly dawns on her that she has always treated others this way, just that now her behavior has splashed back onto herself. She saw herself from the outside. Was she kicked out of the studio? Yes, but how many people has she herself thrown away in life, like garbage? Her behavior just came full circle and returned to her.

In general, the original Elizabeth clearly hates herself, and the scenes where she endlessly looks in the mirror, trying to hide wrinkles and such, perfectly reflect the suffering of all dysmorphophobics on the planet. She looks at her face with such inexpressible disgust that the “blue curtains” are visible with the naked eye. There’s a theory that the body (the fleshy, physical one) is the notorious inner child. And that’s how it feels, that’s how the body looks, despite all your efforts to change something.

The film, as they say, “hit me with a shovel” because the problem shown is entirely my problem. I was always very annoyed by psychotherapists’ phrases about how “I chose such a reaction” when I certainly didn’t choose it! It seems that this stupid body chose such a reaction, and now I’m bearing the consequences. I want to walk and write a book, but it fell and is sick, that jerk! But if you look at it from this angle, then the body is also me. It’s me from the other side, from the inside out, and it’s also my choice. And so, when I don’t listen to my body but stubbornly drag it “where it needs to go,” it will then send a response too… For the violence. With weight, migraines, insomnia, and pain, pain, oceans of pain. Hello from me to myself, only from the closet, yeah. Well, and there – everyone has their own thing, everyone has a closet, the question is whether there is light in it, a soft couch, and mineral water.

The film “The Substance” ends with the Shadow trying to kill the Personality, which is what usually happens in real life. And tech support tells her that you can kill, but you can’t bring everything back. It’s impossible to recover the resource that was spent on trying to be someone else and not being yourself. And if you come to your senses too late, your closet version will have nothing left from which you could draw strength. But we can draw resources from our Shadow almost without limits – in memory, emotions, even anger or hatred, kilotons of Qi are trapped. Therefore, people who spend years kicking all their feelings, emotions, and unpleasant sides into a closet may face the fact that the Shadow will simply press the Self-Destruct button. Well, if you don’t want to be yourself, then you don’t need to be at all.

Mylene Maelinhon (c) Material from the Marginal Metaphysics Project

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