It’s been a few days since I saw The Substance and I’m going to be honest: I still don’t know what to make of it. The current slate of theatrical releases hasn’t really been exciting to me, but I was floored by what I saw with The Substance. It’s the kind of bold filmmaking that isn’t afraid to take risks and try to make a point. It’s brash, immaculately produced, and the type of movie I’d encourage anyone to see.
And yet, it’s also a bit of a mess. There were times when I was watching The Substance that I felt like it was beating me over the head with a sledgehammer nonstop so that it could convey one of its several messages. At first, I was alright with it, but eventually, it became so overt and so blunt that it sometimes reached the point of parody. I was laughing hysterically towards the end, but I can’t really say if it was because the climax was so insane or because we lost the plot so badly that all it could do was devolve into a mess.
I think the best way to approach this review is to start with this – The Substance is a lot.
The Substance
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Release Date: September 20, 2024 (Theatrical)
Rating: R
The Substance follows an aging star, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), who was recently let go from her hit aerobics show that she’s led for decades because she just turned 50 and is no longer seen as being attractive to audiences. Contending with the fact that she’s getting older, she learns about a sketchy drug called “The Substance” that promises her a new younger body and a chance to relive her youth through that. She takes it, which produces a younger version of herself that she calls Sue (Margaret Qualley), and the two swap consciousness every week. As Sue becomes more and more desirable and popular, Elisabeth develops a mental rift between her younger persona, which leads to the two of them fighting over who the dominant personality is.
So first things first – The Substance is a beautiful-looking movie. Right from the very first scene, we see the pomp and celebration of Elisabeth getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As the years pass by, we visibly see her star begin to crack as more and more people forget who she is, eventually becoming completely irrelevant. It’s a bit heavy-handed in making its point, but that bluntness is great at making sure everyone is instantly on board with its ideas. Elisabeth wants her youth, but it’s a monkey’s paw wish as she sees that desire to relive her glory years is costing her both her happiness and sanity. Then you add on the commentary on gender when Dennis Quaid’s studio executive is portrayed immediately as a disgusting and repulsive who only cares about her sex appeal and nothing else.
Attractiveness and desirability are key things in this movie and it’s shown constantly. All of the younger actors are depicted as sexy and beautiful, with their asses hanging out and their breasts in your face while every older actor is shown as being sad and pathetic. Not only is Elisabeth depressed and bored waiting to become Sue again, but all of her scenes are framed in dark and sterile environments, with the camera frequently up close and showing just how lifeless she’s become. It’s definitely a movie of two halves, but all of the movie’s themes are expertly conveyed thanks to the cinematography. Shots that feature Sue’s looming gaze from a billboard contrasted with the broken frame of Elisabeth in her prime are beautiful and reinforce the ideas of age, beauty, and societal expectations of what is and isn’t beautiful/relevant. Again, it’s about as subtle as a pair of breasts in your face can be, but that’s kind of the point.
Copyright: Mubi
I think another reason why these shots make as much of an impact as they do is because they’re so reminiscent of other director’s works. There is a shot in the climax that feels ripped straight from a Kubrick film, but plenty of other shots also call back to David Lynch and David Cronenberg. I don’t mind that though since if you’re going to imitate others, you might as well take from the best. The film still has some unique shots of its own, like the aforementioned shot of the Walk of Fame star and a later scene involving someone putting on an earring. And, really, this is a film that you can enjoy solely by watching it. Dialogue is very minimal here and you could watch the movie with the sound off and still have the same general reaction to the film.
With or without dialogue, it’s clear that Demi Moore is giving her all here. While it does take some time for her character to come to life, there’s a lot that you can tell about Elisabeth mostly just from how Demi Moore glances around her apartment, reflecting on her life through the objects inside it. That isn’t to say that Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid aren’t great here – Quaid relishes being a ham and Margaret Qualley also conveys a lot with her eyes – but this is Demi Moore’s show. This is the kind of bold performance that rightfully deserves critical acclaim if only because of how unconventional it is.
Where The Substance starts to lose me is how aggressive it is in getting its point across. The film runs well over 2 hours and it drags a lot in the beginning and middle as it tries to hamfistedly deliver its point. Once it’s established that Sue is ideally how Elisabeth wants to be and starts to resent herself, there are only so many ways it can be conveyed before it starts to wear thin. Once the film shifts genres it does inject some life into the proceedings, but the first half of the movie is noticeably weaker when compared to what it eventually becomes.
Copyright: Mubi
To make matters worse, when dialogue does pop up, it becomes almost laughable. I know this film won the Palm d’Or for Best Screenplay, but it definitely wasn’t for the dialogue, which has nearly every side character outside of Elisabeth coming across as basic and one-note parody of an average person. Every man is either a pervert or a creeper and while I know why the film is making that point, we didn’t need to see half a dozen characters who all fill the same role. They’re just different flavors of creep with clunky dialogue that only exists to make a point or to be pulled later on as a callback and become recontextualized. No one outside of Elisabeth, Sue, and the mysterious voice who Elisabeth calls about The Substance act like an actual person. They’re more like walking symbols that lack any and all subtext.
Parts of it are inventive in that regard, and I wouldn’t call it bad, but it doesn’t have the emotional resonance that the first half did. In those moments, you really did feel for Elisabeth as she saw how tempting The Substance was, the allure of being seen as someone again, and the pain of how she slowly developed debilitating agoraphobia. The movie is at its strongest when its themes center on Elisabeth and what she’s going through, not the commentary on gender or the objectification of women. And yes, I know what that sounds like coming from a guy, but the universal themes of growing older and the mental toll that realization takes on a person are more interesting than the theme of “Aren’t men just the worst?” If you want to see that theme at its most brutal, go watch Promising Young Woman, not this.
I guess I would also be doing The Substance a disservice if I didn’t mention its ending. In short, it’s a gonzo spectacular that’s both tragic, hilarious, and gory as hell. It’s one of the most memorable endings to a movie I’ve seen in recent years and I’m sure that it’s going to be one of the most talked about endings of the year. For all of the problems I may have had with some of the choices that the film made leading up to its ending, I can’t deny that I had a permanent smile on my face as the chaotic finale unfolded. It felt like the movie had nothing else to say other than turn the dial up to 11 and completely let loose, releasing the pent-up frustration that Elisabeth had been building over the entire film.
Copyright: Mubi
Even when I had misgivings about the dialogue and how it can feel a bit repetitive at times, The Substance is the kind of bold statement that I savor. It’s one million percent not for everyone and is almost certainly going to repel audiences away from it, but if you’re the kind of person who appreciates trashy art, The Substance is for you. It’s beautiful in a way that few movies are and it’s an intentional mess in others, but I had an absolute blast by the end of it. Even then, watch it for the ending alone. It’s worth it just for those last 15 minutes.
