GLENDA JACKSON: MORE THAN A TOUCH OF CLASS

May 9, 1936 - June 15, 2023

Winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actress, a two-time BAFTA winner, and the distinguished recipient of a Golden Globe, Emmy, and Tony Award. The late, great Glenda May Jackson (Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty) was indisputably one of the preeminent actors of my generation. 

And a lifetime personal favorite. 

What I wrote about Glenda Jackson in 2014: 

“Blessed with a mellifluous voice and an articulate beauty that radiates strength, intellect, and a fleshy sensuality, Jackson is Old Hollywood star-quality without the lacquered veneer. Her performance as Gudrun Brangwen [in Ken Russell's Women in Love - 1969], certainly one of the more complex, emotionally paradoxical characters in literature, is almost wily. Throughout the film, she wears the look of a woman in possession of a secret she dares you to find out.”

When I started this blog in 2009, Jackson had already been retired for sixteen years (if serving for 23 years as a member of British Parliament can be called retirement). At the time, what with a substantial amount of her film and television work unavailable on VHS or missing in action on DVD at the local Blockbuster, I recall devoting a great many paragraphs to venting my spleen about how profoundly I missed her and how sorely her brand of grown-up intelligence was lacking in the adolescent male fantasy/franchise-driven cinema of the first decade of the 21st century. 

Their chemistry was electric. My favorite of all Jackson's co-stars.
Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed made three films together.
Women in Love (1969) - The Triple Echo (1972) - The Class of Miss MacMichael - 1978

I've been in thrall of Glenda Jackson since my teens. Though initially, due to the “mature” nature of her early films, mine was an infatuation formed on what I’d read, not seen. Since I wasn’t yet in high school when Women in Love premiered in the US in 1970 and only of “rated-GP” age when her subsequent R-rated films—The Music Lovers and Sunday, Bloody Sunday—came out the following year, no small part of the Glenda Jackson mystique for me was that she was this highly acclaimed, Oscar-winning darling of the arthouse and hard-to-please critics, who made movies that my parents thought were too controversial and adult for me to see. I was hooked!

In Glenda Jackson's first film, she was an uncredited extra in Richard Harris's This Sporting Life. In her last feature film before assuming her duties as MP in 1992, Richard Harris was her co-star. In King of the Wind, Jackson plays Queen Caroline to Harris' King George II in a dual cameo for this star-studded children's film. Said Jackson to a journalist during filming: “I’m only doing it for the money. I’ve never been paid so much for doing so little in my life.” 

With her movies off-limits to me, through the initial stages of my infatuation, Glenda Jackson was just this striking woman with the Vidal Sassoon bob, razor-sharp cheekbones, wry mouth, and no-nonsense gaze looking back at me from issues of Sight & Sound, Film Quarterly, and Films in Review at the library. But in the era of the "flower child" and the perennial waif (Mia Farrow, Goldie Hawn, Leigh Taylor-Young), Glenda Jackson represented a screen commodity in short supply during Hollywood's youthquake panic...she was a grown woman. 

Glenda Jackson never played the ingenue. Straight out of the gate, 

she tackled demanding roles of unsettling emotional forcefulness   

"Now, every time there's a role for a nut case who takes her clothes off, they say 'Call Glenda Jackson'"
Chicago Times - 1971 (Jackson, on wearying of playing neurotics)

In the films of the late '60s, a confluence of the youth counterculture, the sexual revolution, eased censorship, and pushback against the feminist movement brought about the rise of the “buddy flick” and the “alienated young man" movie. The result: the marginalization or complete erasure of the grown woman from movie screens. In its place, and the emergence of “the girl”…the showy, supplicant, supportive, subordinate, sexually-available girl. 

"Women aren't integral to films except as sex-objects. The woman is always a soothing balm or irritating scourge to the man whose story is the main thrust of the film."  - Glenda Jackson in 1989

TELL ME LIES: A FILM ABOUT LONDON (1968)
Jackson appeared in the film adaptation and original 1966 stage production of Dennis Cannan's anti-war exercise in experimental theater, "US," directed by Peter Brook for the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

But Glenda Jackson was no girl; everything about her communicated “grown-ass woman” and “force to be reckoned with.” Ill-suited for standing on the sidelines, retreating into the background, or diminishing herself for the sake of a male co-star (I still have memories of 5' 8" Swiss actor Marthe Keller having to slouch and contort herself to appear shorter than co-stars Dustin Hoffman [Marathon Man 5' 5"] and Al Pacino [Bobby Deerfield 5' 6"), when you saw Glenda Jackson in a movie, she stood out as the individual whose story you wanted to know more about. 

                                       NEGATIVES (1968)                    Severinfilms.com
In this precursor to Women in Love, Jackson portrays one half of a role-playing couple
 who finds herself having to fight for dominance once the duo becomes a trio 

Harboring few illusions about herself or her career (which she regarded as work, not stardom maintenance), both onscreen and in interviews, Jackson radiated a grounded self-sufficiency that frustrated journalists accustomed to writing about women through the traditional gendered prisms of glamour, sex appeal, love life, and fashion.

In those days, it seemed impossible for any critic to write about Glenda Jackson at any length without using at least one of the following words (invariably as a negative): steely, challenging, hard, intellectual, direct, dominating…you get the point. In some circles, her bluntness earned her the nickname "Stonewall" Jackson.

Glenda Jackson made two films with Peter Finch. For Sunday, Bloody Sunday, she received her second Best Actress Oscar nomination. For The Nelson Affair (known as Bequest to the Nation in the UK), Jackson caused a PR furor by openly telling the press that she thought she was terrible in it

It took a while, but once critics adapted to the (shocking!) notion that there was nothing extraordinary about a woman exhibiting the same strengths traditionally lauded in men, they came to appreciate that Jackson’s resilience was just one aspect of her broadly dimensional range as an actor. The warmer shades of Jackson’s palette—affection, grief, longing, loneliness—are on affecting display in several of her films, particularly Stevie, The Return of the Soldier, and The Turtle Diary.

Personally, I liked Jackson's toughness. She emerged from the British New Wave (the post-war cultural era of "kitchen sink realism" that was dubbed the Angry Young Man movement), and I remember thinking at the time that it would be very cool if she became known as British Cinema’s “Angry Young Woman.”

Glenda Jackson's acerbic intensity made her a natural choice for portraying
 domineering authoritarians. As for this proclivity leading to roles as nuns...
well, that's something you'll have to take up with the authors of these works.

Considering how coming across as likeable or pleasant didn't appear to rank high in her concerns when choosing movie roles, in many ways, Glenda Jackson's success contradicted every standard once considered essential for a woman to become an international star in motion pictures at the time. There was far too much intelligence behind her eyes for me to feel Jackson could ever be entirely convincing as a giggly, superficial character, but she nevertheless built up an impressively versatile resume of roles in her career. Speaking to that point in 1974: "People see me as profane one time, regal the next, funny, insane, demure...I want to keep it that way."  

THE BOY FRIEND (1971)
If avant-gardist Peter Brook of the RSC is considered the most influential director of Glenda Jackson's theatrical work, then Britain's enfant terrible, Ken Russell, is the director most closely associated with her film career.  She and Russell collaborated on five feature films and one TV movie from 1969 to 1992

Given my adolescent fondness for films that were too adult for me, the irony isn’t lost that my first glimpse of Glenda Jackson on the big screen was in the only G-rated movie Ken Russell ever made: the charming 1920s musical The Boy Friend. Showcasing a previously untapped flair for comedy, Jackson’s uncredited cameo as an egotistical stage star benefited from a meta quality that may not be appreciated today. Jackson was a major star at the time, known for her simple lifestyle, seriousness, and indifference to celebrity. Seeing cinema's biggest and most down-to-earth dramatic star in comically over-the-top diva mode was a delightful surprise.  This brief glimpse left me wanting more.

Make Mine a Double
Glenda Jackson's one-woman British Invasion of Elizabeth I portrayals saw Elizabeth R premiere on TV screens in February 1972, and Mary Queen of Scots open in theaters the following month.

Happily, I didn’t have to wait long; a few months after the US release of The Boy Friend, PBS Masterpiece Theater aired Jackson’s six-part miniseries on Queen Elizabeth I, Elizabeth R, for which she earned two Emmys. Spanning 45 years in the monarch’s life, the BBC series gave Jackson the opportunity to delve deeply into the character and portray such a broad array of emotions; each week was like a 90-minute crash course in Glenda Jackson 101. If I was only infatuated with Glenda Jackson before, Elizabeth R made certain I was now in love.

Though the humor and appeal of the legendary British comedy team of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise is utterly lost on me, Glenda Jackson's June 3, 1971, appearance as Cleopatra on The Morecambe and Wise Show was instrumental in altering the Grand Tragedian trajectory of her career. Jackson's then-uncharacteristic comedic outing caught the attention of A Touch of Class director Melvin Frank, leading to her being offered her first "average woman" role and her first comedy. 

"All men are fools! And what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got."
Jackson appeared on The Morecambe & Wise Show four more times over the years. And in 1978, she got to legitimately portray the Queen of the Nile in Peter Brook's production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra for the RSC. 

A Touch of Class marked a series of firsts for Glenda Jackson: her first film with American co-stars, her first romantic comedy, and her first mainstream hit. And it marked one significant “second": it garnered Jackson her second Academy Award win for Best Actress. 

The Jackson/Segal spark failed to ignite in the anemic Lost and Found, but by then, the formula established in A Touch of Class—contrast comedy rooted in Jackson's starchy “Britishness” butting up against boyish, Yankee schlubbiness—would be repeated to considerably better effect in her two films with Walter Matthau.

Glenda Jackson and Walter Matthau shared an irresistible onscreen chemistry in House Calls that reminded me of peanut brittle ice cream: smooth, sweet, but with a bite. Offscreen, they maintained a mutual admiration society that led Jackson to accept Matthau's personal invitation to join him in Salzburg and take on an absolutely nothing role in the spy comedy Hopscotch. It's just the sort of empty "girlfriend" part that Jackson had spoken out against countless times. She herself called the character she played "a cipher," going on to say, "It was money for old rope. I played her with my usual mid-Cheshire accent, but I hardly look on it as a major contribution."

The Muppet Show - 1980
Glenda as Black Jackson, the heartless pirate captain who takes over
The Muppet Show in what I think is one of the best episodes in the series

Glenda Jackson’s success as a romantic comedy foil had the added benefit of making many of her earlier films more accessible on cable TV and in the revival theater circuit. Finally, I was able to catch up on all the Glenda Jackson films I missed as a kid, and with the advent of home video, I was able to follow her career forward and backward simultaneously.

THE MAIDS - 1975

THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN - 1975    d. Joseph Losey

HEDDA - 1975        d. Trevor Nunn

THE INCREDIBLE SARAH - 1976

STEVIE - 1978

H.E.A.L.T.H. - 1980          d. Robert Altman

THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER - 1982

AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (aka GIRO CITY) - 1982

TURTLE DIARY - 1985

BEYOND THERAPY - 1987      d. Robert Altman

BUSINESS AS USUAL - 1988

SALOME'S LAST DANCE - 1988        d. Ken Russell

THE RAINBOW - 1989      d. Ken Russell

THE SECRET LIFE OF ARNOLD BAX -1992
A biographical TV film directed by Ken Russell. It's fitting that, in this, their final collaboration, Glenda Jackson and Ken Russell (making a rare appearance in front of the cameras) play lovers. 

This headline is from 1971

Glenda Jackson declaring in interviews that she was about to quit was an annual occurrence since the start of her career. She followed through when she turned 55. Jackson's political career as a Member of Parliament spanned from 1992 to 2015. She was 78 when she resigned, and I was certain she would retire for good. I should have known better.

53 years after making her Tony-nominated Broadway debut in Marat/Sade in 1965, 81-year-old Glenda Jackson made a triumphant return to Broadway in Three Tall Women, winning her 1st Tony Award. She returned the following year, assuming the title role of Shakespeare's King Lear.  

MOTHERING SUNDAY - 2021
At age 84, in her first feature film in 32 years

1975                                        2023 

Glenda Jackson's final film role was in The Great Escaper, which reunited Jackson with her co-star from The Romantic Englishwoman, Michael Caine. She was 86, and Caine, who is still with us as of this writing, was 90.

To me, Glenda Jackson will always be “The woman who didn’t ask permission." 

When I think of her, the first things that come to mind are her beautiful speaking voice (a journalist aptly called it a "stainless steel voice"), her expressive mouth, and the almost magical way she seemed to take command of every scene. Even when she was silent. 

Oh, and I also think of her as the person who introduced me to the word "pusillanimous"! (House Calls)

I truly admire how, through her work, she continually challenged societal constraints. And in the way she lived, she made all the "don'ts" and "can'ts" related to gender and age completely irrelevant. 

Most of all, I remain inspired by her brilliance as an actor and how she utilized her gifts—her determination, sensitivity, intelligence, and bravery—to illuminate the darker aspects of the human experience, never hesitating to confront the unpleasant and difficult.

Truly one of the greats, and one-of-a-kind.

Click HERE

To see clips from Glenda Jackson's films on the Le Cinema Dreams YouTube Channel

AWARDS

Maggie Smith - Why did we come, Sidney?

Michel Caine - Because it’s free, darling.

Maggie Smith - Glenda Jackson never comes. She’s nominated every goddamn year!

                                                                         Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978) 

In any discussion of Glenda Jackson, it must be understood that any emphasis on awards and accolades comes entirely from the biographer, in this case, me. Jackson, though pleased and always so graciously thankful, was notoriously detached from the whole prize-winning aspect of acting; insisting that awards can be "given," but because acting is not a horse race, they cannot be "won."

Winning Her First Best Actress Academy Award in 1971 at age 33

Winning Her First Best Actress Tony Award in 2018 at age 81

Best Actress Oscar-nominated four times (wins in Bold): 

Women in Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday, A Touch of Class, and Hedda 

Jackson attended the Oscar ceremonies only once (April 8, 1975), as a presenter handing the Best Actor Oscar over to the draw-dropping choice of Art Carney (over Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Albert Finney).

Years later, she had this to say about watching the 1979 Oscar telecast:  

“I felt ashamed of myself for watching. No one should have a chance to see so much desire, so much need for a prize. And so much pain when [it] was not given ... I felt disgusted with myself. As though I were attending a public hanging.”  

I love that. But as I've always felt, Glenda Jackson was a very classy lady.

I think this is a high school graduation photo

"I've won all of the prizes. Every single one. They're all here, in the attic somewhere. 

It was inevitable. The task was impossible. But it was... Wonderful."

 Mothering Sunday (2021) 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2025

THE SUBSTANCE 2024

Spoiler Alert. This is a critical essay, not a review, so plot points will be revealed for discussion purposes.

Have you ever come across one of those hysterical clickbait links with a headline screaming, “You’ll be shocked to see what (insert any celebrity ...99% of the time, a woman) looks like today!” only to discover that the person has simply aged naturally?

Or maybe you've noticed that—while the posting of heavily filtered, augmented, and body-tuned selfies is nothing new—they all now seem to be aiming for the same standardized mannequin aesthetic.

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Or you may have seen the male fitness influencer (who stays mum about his secret cycle of HGH injections) who cloaks run-of-the-mill narcissism in the aspirational rhetoric of discipline and self-mastery. Employing aggressive Alpha language (fight, power, winning, conquer pain), it all feels like obvious compensation for an underlying unease with what might be perceived as a “socially feminine” preoccupation with one's looks. 

And then, perhaps you’ve had the misfortune of encountering the AI artwork of a “creator” who wants to share with you his/her depiction of the ideal in female beauty: Which somehow ALWAYS means a vacantly staring white woman with the exaggerated eyes and lips of a Bratz doll and a body of Jessica Rabbit cartoon proportions.

VEEP- 2019

In pondering a hypothetical, such as why women would vote for a political candidate who is a convicted rapist, the point is made that the most successful form of oppression occurs

when the marginalized have been taught to enforce their own subjugation.

Even my citing these examples reflects the hegemony of body politics that we all perpetuate, participate in, and endure. Underscoring how, as a society, we continue to intrude upon the personal, private domain of others (our bodies are our own and no one else’s business) by asserting that we all, collectively, have some kind of say in the matter. Consequently, our bodies and physical appearance come to significantly influence our experience of the world, our self-esteem, and in far too many cases, our mental health. 

Where once fashion magazines and advertising were the primary suppliers of unrealistic beauty norms,  now, selfie-culture (with its "take 500 photos to get the ideal one to post" standards of phone-filter perfection) makes sure that every moment of every day, we're bombarded with images of how we think we're supposed to look.  

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1963)

In The Substance, French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat takes a laceratingly frank look at bodies- our own and the bodies of others- and our relationship with them. Using vivid imagery and startling symbolism, Fargeat confronts the attitudes, conflicts, phobias, and fetishes we attach to our all-too-weak flesh with a take-no-prisoners bravado. Forcing us to examine how our reckless pursuit of beauty standards has blurred the jagged line between self-care and self-mutilation. And Fargeat does so without offering solutions, reassurance, or much concern for our comfort zones. 

THE MIRROR CRACK'D (1980)

Only the second feature film from the gifted director/writer/editor, The Substance is a darkly surreal fairy tale exploring body image, beauty standards, aging, self-loathing, misogyny, disposable people culture, patriarchy, psychological violence, and two of my all-time favorite themes: dualism and the human desire to connect and be loved. 

Though in so many ways unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, The Substance possesses a visual richness that pays homage to classic cinema while blazing an audaciously unique path all its own. Psychological, cultural, and emotional truths merge with a barely-linked-to-reality narrative that evokes a monstro-mutation of the cinema of our past: All About Eve, Showgirls, Death Becomes Her, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Perfect, Black Swan, Carrie, and of course--

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This movie is 75 years old. A society really must have a serious talk with itself to explain how a woman losing her mind because she's turning 50 is still a thing

Embodying the tagline of 1974’s The Day of the Locust: “It Happened in Hollywood, But It Could Have Happened in Hell,” The Substance is set in a present-day Hollywood of the mind—a Hollywood where it sometimes snows, people still read newspapers to find jobs, nighttime talk show hosts are Black, exercise TV programs are ratings blockbusters, and ‘80s/‘90s aesthetics...like legwarmers...have never really left. 

The film's anti-heroine is once-popular, Oscar-winning actress Elisabeth Sparkle (it’s her real name; for we learn in school she was called Lizzie Sparkle, “the most beautiful girl in the world”…at least according to Fred in 10th-grade homeroom). Elisabeth is on the verge of an existential crisis.

Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle

Margaret Qualley as Sue

The (de)evolution of Elisabeth’s career suggests perhaps ageism played a role in her no longer acting in movies (roles for women over 40 make up only 5% of available female film roles), leading her down the B-List showbiz path of TV aerobics guru -"Sparkle Your Life with Elisabeth" - and advertising spokesperson exploiting her catchphrase "You Got It!" A career in which her success and fame are entirely linked to her physical appearance and age-defying physicality. 

Alas, age-defying doesn't mean age-less. On her 50th birthday, Elisabeth receives (in the harshest way imaginable) the world-shattering news that she and her long-running TV show are to be put out to pasture to make room for a tighter, firmer, younger version of both. 

Dennis Quaid as Network Executive (wouldn't you know it) Harvey

These guys don't think you're hot enough. 

As emphasized by the film’s Kubrick-esque camera angles and macro closeups, The Substance is partially an allegory about distorted perceptions. TV executive Harvey's lack of self-perception makes him think he's a charming winner instead of a bullying sociopath whose inner sense of inadequacy manifests in external outbursts of psychological violence. Always targeting women.  

On the distaff side, Elisabeth's lack of self-perception is a kind of mind blindness. She has an inability to latch onto any yardstick of self-evaluation not linked to impossible aesthetic norms and the validation of the male gaze. Her lack of self-esteem manifesting in escalating internal (and later, VERY external) outbursts of self-directed violence...psychological, emotional, and physical. In fact, she hates herself.

The fact that an entire wall of Elisabeth's Barbarella spaceship-style penthouse is dominated by a
floor-to-ceiling portrait of herself tells us everything we need to know about her priorities 

It can be said that Elisabeth's lack of inner substance—exemplified in her complete embrace of superficial beauty ideals that undermine her worth as a human—is the fatal character flaw that sets the conflict of The Substance in motion. Instead of directing her anger at a social construct that diminishes her in every way, she directs her anger at herself for failing to live up to these ridiculous standards. Still, it's impossible not to feel empathy. 

One can always detect discernable traces of self-loathing behind the physical perfection-seekers of our culture, but since we're a society that values overachievement no matter how hollow the reward -as in celebrating "good" plastic surgery or the "quickest" fad diet- we reinforce the notion that "looking" like we're okay on the outside is more important than actually "being" okay inside.

That's one of the reasons why I think fame and celebrity are so sought-after by those plagued by self-disgust; though meaningless in the larger scheme of things, the external validation of strangers can work like lead to the kryptonite of introspection. 

Letting others define you and tell you exactly what you need to be, do, and look like to make yourself worthy of love is a doctrine that clearly works for a great many people. Religions have been doing it for centuries, and they swear by it (literally). 

Of course, the implicit caveat behind the conditional love and transitory admiration offered by celebrity and fame is the understanding that said "stars" must never change or age. 

"Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They're the temporary happy by-products 

of time and/or DNA. Don't hold your breath for either."  Carrie Fisher -2015

For someone like Elisabeth, being told that she's at the end of her career is like telling her she's at the end of her life. The Substance—an underground youth elixir that promises a younger, more beautiful, and more perfect version of oneself—enters Elisabeth’s life at the exact moment she starts to feel its impending erasure. How convenient.

And while the promise of that little Day-Glo vial is irresistible and appears to be the solution to all of Elisabeth's problems, anyone who's read a Stephen King novel, watched an Amicus anthology horror film, or seen an episode of The Twilight Zone knows- 

...there's always a catch.

Whoopi Goldberg - Ghost (1990)

That image above of the injected and divided egg yolk will have to serve as summary of how the drug known as The Substance works. Fargeat is far too compelling a visual storyteller (and it's all too far-out and surreal) for anything I write to do it justice. 

I will say that The Substance does indeed create a new, fully formed, independent person from Elisabeth’s DNA (picture Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus" reimagined by David Cronenberg); however, Sue, as she names herself, is more a “side” of Elisabeth than a new “version.” 

Self Care
"I guess I just try to be myself. To be sincere and grateful for all that I have. And to always remember to lead with my heart." - Sue, spouting the empty affirmations of selfie-caption psychology 

The ultimate Odd Couple, Elisabeth and Sue, share an apartment and an irksomely inconsistent consciousness while living an alternating existence of one week on, one week off. 

It’s a bit like if the adult, self-possessed part of me and the side that still compulsively bites my fingernails existed as two separate people. It’s definitely ME biting my nails; however, in most cases, it’s something I do without conscious awareness. I often “catch” myself biting my nails, which sounds absurd since it’s ME, yet that’s how it works. You’re one, yet it’s still possible to act as though you are disconnected from yourself. 

Sweet Sue

No one else, it seems, ever shared my dreams.
And without you, dear, I don't know what I'd do.

In Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977), Sissy Spacek plays a character named  Pinky Rose (!) who cultivates a hyperfeminine personality that comes to dominate and drain the life force of her roommate Millie (Shelley Duvall). A similar dynamic develops between Elisabeth and Sue in The Substance, turning this already ingeniously assaultive allegory into an absolutely demented roar of anger confronting the horrific violence we’re willing to inflict upon ourselves (body and psyche) in the pursuit of unattainable perfection.

The Violence of Beauty
Hard to imagine a male director including a detail like this. When Elisabeth is taken to the hospital after an accident, there is a brief shot of her bare legs dangling over the edge of the table. Barely visible are the callouses of friction blisters...the kind that come from wearing high heels

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I don't often write about contemporary films, but when I do, I've noticed that most of them tend to be of a "sort": Hereditary (2018), Black Swan (2010), Midsommar (2019), Maps to the Stars (2014), Nocturnal Animals (2016). This sort being movies that convey a sense of auteurist vision, independent daring, and a kind of artistic audacity that reminds me of that unpredictable, "Only in the '70s," off-the-wall quality that made so many films from that era so great. And so insane!

I love everything about The Substance: its immersive use of sound (incredible!), color, camera angles, editing, and locations. All is in service of the film's meticulously-crafted worldview. A worldview wherein absolutely everything feels excessive, yet nothing feels wasteful. 

Best of all, I think it's a very smart movie. It knows what it wants to say and, by refusing to spell everything out, doesn't mind if what's being expressed is misunderstood. Indeed, in some ways, it could be said that The Substance dares you to like it. 

A valid argument could be made that the film's points are made with a sledgehammer, but to that, I'd say, if in the year 2025 we're still having men legislate women's bodies, then perhaps a sledgehammer is necessary to get these (to me) obvious points across.

These guys don't think you're hot enough.
Daniel Knight and Jonathan Carley as Casting Directors

I have four sisters, and according to them, the "Seinfeld Syndrome"—their term for the phenomenon of utterly unprepossessing guys expecting physical perfection from women—is far from a social exaggeration. 

I found The Substance to be compelling, grotesque, ingenious, and as sharp as a razor. It moved me and grossed me out, and the ending, in particular, is so poignant (major waterworks) that it’s a shame the scene itself is so difficult to watch. Speaking of which, I've seen The Substance four times—well, make that three; the first time shouldn't count because I spent so much time covering my eyes—and each time, I continue to discover new things. There's something powerfully honest about a movie that examines how the marginalized can internalize and identify with society's hatred of them. 

The Final Metamorphosis

"Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous." 
                                           Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust -1939

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

For a film about an actress, set in Hollywood (filmed in France) and exploring the pressures placed on women to be perfect, I appreciate how Coralie Fargeat and her team utilize a visual storytelling style that has the viewer perpetually processing this new story (The Angry Young Woman has yet to become a trope, but I think it might be on its way) through the echo of familiar cinematic imagery. 

The power of images is immense, which is why it's crucial to ask ourselves who is behind the representations we see of ourselves in movies, TV, and advertising. If those controlling what we see are also the people who hate us, then their only vested interest is in teaching us how to hate ourselves. 

The obsession with perfection is the core theme of both
The Substance and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan 

The Substance and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
Grids and Richard Strauss' " Thus Spake Zarathustra feature in both films

These bold callbacks to Kubrick's The Shining heighten The Substance's use 

of confined spaces to create tension and convey a sense of imminent violence.

PERFORMANCES

This is a two-hander as far as I'm concerned, with both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley delivering full-throttle, pull-out-the-stops performances that are each unimaginable without the other. Qualley is new to me, but she had me in her pocket in the silent scene where Sue comes upon an indented easy chair and TV remote- evidence that Elisabeth has been wasting her allotted time doing nothing but watching television. The acute level of disapproving judgment and disgust that comes across Qualley's face at this moment speaks volumes about her character.  I don't know how she did it. 

American Beauty / Black Dahlia

I have to confess I'm not the best Demi Moore fan. I checked on IMDB to see how many of her films I'd seen...grand total: five (my favorite being Mortal Thoughts -1991). Before The Substance, I had not seen Moore in a movie since the 2007 Kevin Costner thriller Mr. Brooks, and I hadn't even REMEMBERED she was in it!

Moore came back into my awareness when a relative gifted me her 2019 memoir (which I initially met with a WTF? but it turns out the book is really terrific). And then, last year, she turned in a brief but powerful performance in the FX series FEUD: Capote vs. The Swans. And I was besotted. 

"You got it!" 

I would like to say that Demi Moore in The Substance gives a career-best performance, but it's already been established that I'm ill-equipped to make such a call. What I will say is that she gives my #1 favorite performance of this year. There's no better testament to the truth and humanity she brings to her character than the fact that The Substance works at all. In some ways, it is an absolutely lunatic movie that takes risk after risk with the audience's suspension of disbelief. Yet, it stays grounded due to the reality and meta-authenticity Moore delivers. 

In a largely silent role, Moore is wonderfully expressive in conveying everything that Elisabeth feels and experiences. Much like what I've always admired about Julie Christie, Moore meets the challenge of giving an essentially superficial character enough depth for us to relate to and empathize with.

BONUS MATERIAL

Reality + (2014)

In this early short film by Coralie Fargeat, she touches upon many of the same themes

explored in The Substance, only from a male perspective. You can watch it HERE.

Men aren't immune to the prevailing pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards--though, being men and inherently fragile, we find it necessary to disguise appearance obsession in "action" language: strong, fit, athletic, healthy, muscular, powerful, and so forth; or label it a "masculinity standard" and infuse it with an alpha illusion of self-actualization ("The only reason I work out is because I'm always my BEST me, and it gets me lots of sex. I'm the one in control."). In other words, anything to mask acknowledging the inherent passivity and loss of power that goes with courting the objectifying gaze.    

Revenge (2017)
Coralie Fargeat made her feature film directing debut with this action thriller
starring Matilda Lutz and Kevin Janssens

Actor Vincent Colombe, cast as one of the silent "suits" in The Substance, has featured roles in both Fargeat's Revenge and the short film Reality +.

Jurassic Fitness

Having enjoyed a long career in the fitness industry myself (1985 to 2019), I absolutely loved that Elisabeth Sparkle was an aerobics instructor! That brief "Sparkle Your Life with Elizabeth" sequence was like watching my past flash before my eyes. Every move executed in her class was one I'd done thousands of times. Even the toxic inspirational /abusive language rings true - "Think of those bikini bods! You wanna look like a giant jellyfish on the beach?"

The photo on the right is an outtake from a mercifully unproduced step-aerobics video project.

As a group instructor and personal trainer, I was pretty much immersed in a world that feeds on and perpetuates everything that The Substance is about (explaining in part why this movie so resonated with me). The promotion of oppressive beauty standards has always been a part of our culture, but the kind of perfectionist extremes The Substance speaks to have their roots in the "exercising for the aesthetics" trend of '80s fitness culture. 

In fact, that tiny figure in the far right side of the movie screencap at the bottom is me working as an extra in the 1985 John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis aerobics exercise opus called...you guessed it, "Perfect." 

Sue's "Pump It Up" exercise TV program is satirically over-the-top, but from 1980 to 1982, the cable network Showtime ran a truly hilariously overheated "erotic exercise" program called "Aerobicise" that makes Sue's show look like a documentary. There's a YouTube channel devoted to it HERE.

Take Care of Yourself 

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 -  2024