I don’t usually like horror films* and I haven’t been to an actual cinema since the pandemic but Demi Moore’s new release – The Substance – is ultra-enticing. (Scroll down for the trailer)
Caveat: I have not seen this yet. However, it revolves around A-lister celebrity fitness instructor Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) who on the verge of turning 50 – yes, Chiron Return! – is about to be rendered redundant by the cabal of sleazebags she made wealthy.
A particularly douchecore television executive (Dennis Quaid) tells her over lunch that: “People always ask for something new….it’s inevitable and at 50…well, it stops.”
Sparkle then decides to take an illicit anti-aging elixir that promises to restore her “younger self” and the story flows from there. Obviously the sex, death, money, power and transformation themes are all present and correct but The Substance is a scorpionic film for reasons beyond that.
I think that the writer/director – Coralie Fargeat – is an astrological genius. This is not hyperbole.
Consider this: the film features Demi’s character locked in an existential struggle with a DNA-alchemized version of her younger self, played by Margaret Qualley.
For a sense of this, imagine having to co-exist with your 19 year old self. Or more weirdly, being semi-possessed by this character?!
So Demi is a multiple conjunct Scorpio – she has Mercury, Neptune, the Sun and Venus conjunct in the sign.
Margaret Qualley, the actor cast as her ‘younger self’, has the Sun, North Node, Venus, Jupiter and Pluto in Scorpio conjunct Demi Moore’s Scorpio array.
Not only that – Demi’s Mars is 14 Leo and Margaret’s is at 10 Leo – this is a wild synastry.
Mars in Leo people compete – they can’t help it. Rivals motivate them and they like trophies.
I cannot believe that for this specific role the director has just randomly selected such genius astro-synergy. If you simmer it down, it’s like they’re ‘the same’ but they’re totally going to compete.
There’s more: both Demi Moore and Coralie Fargeat have Mercury-Neptune conjunct – what better way to ensure a good creative synergy than selecting someone with the same style of mediating everything from glamor to consciousness?
Fargeat is a triple Sagg – Sun-Mercury-Neptune with her North Node in Scorpio conjunct Margaret’s Sun and Demi’s late Libran Lilith.
Sorry but there is no way she could have spontaneously conjured this dimension of astro-synchronicity up without being a powerful astromancer or sorceress, really.
Or could she? Will you see this movie? Thoughts?
*To be ultra-Moon in Libra about this, one of the things I’m drawn to with this film is the cinematography and lighting – I love whatever the term is for this level of luxury and color-saturation, like a Miles Aldridge or Nadia Lee Cohen image.
I suspect that even the most horror-film hating, serenity-revering Libra Moon people can happily sit through the scariest melodrama if the styling intrigues them. I enthused about The Neon Demon before realizing it was widely not just panned but reviled. Sorry but the lighting was sublime.
This may also apply to Libra Sun, Ascendant and even Venus of course. I know a triple Libran who became obsessed with a particularly lurid Spanish soap opera series – to the point that she was a finalist in a television quiz about it, despite not speaking Spanish – because of the aesthetic.
