In one of the earliest scenes in Coralie Fargeat’s latest film, “The Substance,” the gluttonous boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) warns Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a TV aerobics instructor, “It stops at 50.”
And because I was watching it as I was on the verge of entering my 50th year, my response was as deadpan as hers.
“What stops at 50?” she says with muted incredulity.
Over the next two hours, the film reveals the various ends precipitated by her midlife: Her appeal. Her audience. Her proximity to power. Her body. Her soul.
All of this is possible because as much as “The Substance” is a movie about Elisabeth’s weekly transformation from her older, more self-conscious self into a younger, completely id-driven Sue (Margaret Qualley), it is really about the preciousness and precariousness of certain types of female beauty.