The Substance

Synopsis: A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Review:

After months of positive reviews by critics that I respect, The Substance has landed on the Mubi streaming service on Halloween, October 31, 2024. I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to horror films overall, but the conversation about this film and possible awards potential I felt the need to steal myself and dive into this complicated and unique film. Below is my summary of the film including spoilers, beware…

The movie opens introducing us to Elizabeth Sparkle, portrayed by Demi Moore completing an television exercise show and heading off stage being wished happy birthday on the way to the restroom by everyone on the set and her cast. The tv producer Harvey, played by Dennis Quaid is overheard talking about replacing Elizabeth with a younger version, and then eventually they go to dinner and he dismisses her from her show and job. After the meeting when driving home, Elisabeth is distracted by a billboard of herself being taken down and she gets into a car wreck. After being checked out by a doctor, an attractive, model-like male nurse seems preoccupied with her back and says her back is perfect.When leaving Elizabeth reaches into her coat and finds a flash drive with an HDMI connection advertising The Substance, she goes home and immediately watches the video on the device. The video pitches the substance that will create a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of oneself and shortly after deliberating she calls and The Substance, after retrieving she injects the single-use activator serum her vision is impacted and eventually her back rips open and a much younger version of herself climbs out of the newly created slit in her back.

The gist of The Substance experience is that you create a symbiotic relationship between the two versions of one person that must follow the rules to create the equilibrium. The original version we meet is Elisabeth and she must transfer her consciousness to the newly created version Sue, played by Margaret Qualley every seven days. Sue must stablize her form with spinal fluid removed from Elizabeth, there are no exceptions to these two rules. Sue is pretty quickly hired as a replacement for Elizabeth and the film is off to the races, showing how the male gaze and general misogyny is the default in the world of television. This balancing act of Elizabeth and Sue is precarious even with the supplier of the substance reminding them that, “You are one”. Sue pushes things first by drawing an additional day’s worth of stabilizer fluid when she is about to have a sexual encounter on the seventh day, then eventually for months leading to complete aging and destruction of Elizabeth, even though she is still alive. Elizabeth decides to end the experiment and gets a fluid designed to terminate Sue. In the end she only injects most of the fluid and eventually revives Sue. She quickly relizes that Elisabeth’s intent was to destroy her after seeing the near-empty syringe and Sue flies into a rage and brutally beats Elisabeth to death before leaving to host the New Year’s special.

Without Elisabeth and with most of the fluid injected into her to destroy her Sue’s body begins to rapidly deteriorate and in a state of panic she returns to her and injects the small amount of the original activator serum that was left over, the supplier has strict instructions to never do. This now turns Sue into a Cronenburgian hybrid of Elisabeth and Sue named Monstro Elisasue and this kills Sue in the process. Monstro Elisasue then gets dressed to host the New Year’s Eve show and goes to the live broadcast. Before leaving, cutting the face of the life sized Elizabeth painting and wearing it as a mask. The mask falls, the audience descends into chaos. Eventually a man decapitates her before her body turns into a sprinkler of blood covering the audience. The portion of Monstro Elisasue What escapes the studio and collapses into a pile of organs and viscera. Elisabeth’s face that was on their back detaches from the pile, crawls onto her neglected star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stares euphorically toward the night sky and smiles as she hallucinates being admired by everyone around her before eventually melting into a puddle.The next day, her blood is cleaned up by a sidewalk cleaner pushing a machine.

I can’t say I loved this movie but my final rated was 3.5 stars on my Letterboxd diary entry, but it is worth watching and very much a film that is causing much discussion. I think the performances of both of the leads are something unique and special, Demi Moore is pushing the boundaries of the types of roles she has worked on, her performance is not just vulnerable but visceral and powerful. Margret Qualley has the ability to play the many facets of Sue here from beautiful, innocence, intense to murderous, I think this perfomance is being overlooked because it comes across so natural and effortless. I can’t say I will revisit this film often but I have thought about it a lot in the past week and expect it will live longer in my head than most films I see this year. Coralie Fargeat the films writer / director is an unwavering autere that is the singular driving force that has created, shaped and honed exactly the story that she wanted to tell from the story to the visuals to the final edit. I will be keeping an eye on what she does next for sure, so should you.