The Substance (2024) took the anxiety of aging and turned it into viscera. Demi Moore (61) gave a ferocious, tragic performance as a fitness celebrity who uses a black-market drug to create a younger, “better” version of herself. It is a grotesque, brilliant metaphor for the industry’s cannibalization of its older women. It won the Palme d’Or for Best Screenplay at Cannes.
The ingénue fades. The icon endures. And right now, the icons are just getting started.
While George Clooney can romance a 30-year-old, a 55-year-old actress is rarely given a love interest her own age. The "age-gap relationship" is still framed as a scandal when the woman is the senior partner.
The "mature woman" role is often allowed to be one thing: either a heroic grandmother or a monstrous CEO. There is a lack of mediocre, messy, ordinary older women. We have the saints and the sinners, but very few of the confused, funny, lazy, or boring.