I saw it on MUBi last night! Absolutely brilliant.
I was quite shocked by so many shots of Elisabeth's naked body at the start but it's perfect for the plot....Demi Moore has an absolutely fantastic body, but it's an older woman's body and the flaws are very clear, can't be good enough for the media.
Loved the transformation scene...she looks in the mirror thinking "do I look better?" then the actual transformation happens which is far more brutal and yet impressive than she could have imagined.
The turning point is when she doesn't go on her date and instead hits herself...heartbreaking. When she's watering at herself and again looking at all her flaws, which we can also see... Demi Moore was a phenomenally beautiful woman in her youth. But nobody can age well enough. This is where things go wrong for the character. If she had gone on the date she would have been loving and nurturing the "old version" of herself. As she's told throughout "you are the matrix" "you are one". Instead, she hates and beats herself. She let the young, shallow, vain side of herself dominate instead of maintaining the balance between old and young. The relentless awfulness of having Sue's image right in front of her windows (nobody in American movies ever has blinds 😂)
Hadn't thought about how food was shown, thanks to the PP who mentioned that - every source of nourishment was made to look disgusting, even the coffee she has in the diner.
We picked up a theme of Elisabeth/Sue as the Earth (spinning in the blue dress at the end) you can take from it, but not infinitely as it has to refresh. If you take too much too quickly "what has been used up cannot be returned".
Fast forwarded through the fight scene...that's for hard core horror fans which I am not. Although enjoyed the Carrie-like scene! Loved how it finally ended, the beginning seemed like hours ago.
I also liked the corridor at the studio, Elisabeth has all her posters to show her long career, then it's all erased when she's fired, then Sue gets two posters but she doesn't get the long career, she's used up far more quickly. Then we get the Shining!
Watched it with DP who is a huge film buff and got all the references but he's always shocked by the brutality of films that truly reflect the female perspective. He said it's saying awful things about what women are meant to be and I said it's saying it exactly how it is. We had the same conversation after Black Swan!
Loved hearing everyone's views... I knew MNers would have interesting perspectives!