Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) defies singular interpretation, yet for me its visceral portrayal of the human body’s instability lingers as its most haunting achievement. The film dismantles the flesh, pulling apart its external façade and internal essence, spotlighting the age-old tension of mind-body dualism. In Islamic thought, the body is mere earthly matter: dust destined to return to dust upon death. It is transient, a temporary vessel for the soul, often likened to a prison that confines the human spirit, perpetually vulnerable to decay. The great Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina mentioned this in his Kitab al-Najat: The soul is independent of the body but temporarily bound to it, much like a bird trapped in a cage [1]. This metaphor haunted me as I watched The Substance and amplifies the horror of its corporeal disintegration. Demi Moore’s breathtaking performance as Elisabeth Sparkle brings this entrapment to life with devastating clarity. In the film’s final moments, as her body collapses under the relentless actions of her younger counterpart, Sue (Margaret Qualley), Elisabeth no longer walks, she drags herself, a grotesque shell weighed down by its own ruin. Yet within that deformed mass, a conscious human exists, locked in a prison of flesh that refuses to release her.

Unlike Islamic mysticism, where the soul may transcend the decay of the body, The Substance grants no such freedom. The body here is not merely a passive vessel; it becomes a site of active violation, reshaped and discarded with unrelenting force. Fargeat dwells on the disorder of this transformation, filling the screen with pus, blood, and corpses—presented through unyielding close-ups and prolonged takes that compel the viewer to confront it fully. This disturbing display recalls psychoanalytic theorist Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, which she defines as “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules” [2]. Kristeva further describes the other as the one by whom the abject exists [2]—those deformed bodies and oozing fluids that are both part of us and alien, inciting rejection to preserve our sense of wholeness. Elisabeth, split between Moore and Qualley, embodies this paradox: her inner essence persists as her flesh twists into something grotesque, familiar yet foreign, blurring the line between self and other until identity itself feels unstable.

That’s where the horror of the film takes hold for me. It’s not some external menace—it’s the fragility of my own body that unsettles me most. Fargeat’s direction brings it so close: the sharp pierce of needles, the slow pooling of blood, the faint crack of bones. Every sound, every frame seems to echo Elisabeth’s collapse, and I couldn’t help but feel it myself. Ibn Sina’s bird might eventually find freedom, but here? There’s no such promise—only her piercing eyes staring out from that broken shell. Kristeva puts it into words: the abject is so near, so much a part of me, yet impossibly distant, beyond my control. That thought stays with me—the idea that this body I call mine might shift or crumble without warning.

References

[1] Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Kitab al-Najat, translated and edited by Fazlur Rahman, in Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitab al-Najat, Book II, Chapter VI (London: Oxford University Press, 1952): 31-33.
[2] Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982): 4-8.