Movie Review: THE SUBSTANCE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 19th, 2024 / 09:05 PM

THE SUBSTANCE teaser poster | ©2024 Mubi

Rating: R
Stars: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Robin Greer
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Distributor: MUBI
Release Date: September 20, 2024

“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? You. Only better in every way. You’ve got to try this product: The Substance. It changed my life.”

So goes the pitch for the stuff alluded to by the title of THE SUBSTANCE. Technically, it’s several different substances that all need to be used as directed for the desired result – and to avoid undesired results.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an Oscar-winning performer who has been reduced to – very gamely – hosting a morning fitness show. Let us stipulate that Moore-as-Elisabeth at her current age looks better than most people look or have ever looked at any point in their lives.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the core audience for this daytime workout show (generally assumed to be largely female and older) keeps tuning in because they can at least imagine aspiring to look like Elisabeth.

However, repellent network boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decrees that the show needs to be revamped with a younger, sexier lead. Elisabeth in fact overhears him discussing this on the phone in disgusting terms.

When Elisabeth is thereafter fired, she is so distraught that she gets into a car accident. Miraculously, she is mostly unharmed. However, when a male nurse (Robin Greer) at the hospital sees Eilsabeth crying, he presses a note into her hand.

The note leads Elisabeth to the Substance, which is being marketed and distributed as anonymously as possible. Despite the grungy entrance, the drop-off mailbox room where Elisabeth receives her weekly doses is sterile and blindingly white.

The “Activation” substance, a liquid that glows neon green, is to be injected only once. This seems simple enough. Then there are the “Stabilization” and “Switch” aspects, plus food for a week.

After Elisabeth administers the “Activation” to herself, she collapses in the bathroom. After convulsions and some body horror (very mild compared to what comes later), Elisabeth essentially gives birth to a full-grown younger woman, who calls herself Sue (Margaret Qualley).

Since the Substance doesn’t appear to come with detailed instructions, Elisabeth is to be congratulated on her intuitive ability to, at first, use all of its components correctly.

There is one hard, fast rule. The Original – Elisabeth – and the Alternate – Sue – must switch every week, without fail or tardiness. The switch means that one of them will be up and about, while the other is inanimate on the floor for that week (hence the need for daily feeding).

What happens if the switch rule is broken? We – and Elisabeth and Sue – find out. There is one other implicit rule that we don’t immediately think about, but we eventually learn what happens when that, too, is broken.

Director/writer Coralie Fargeat keeps us leaning forward throughout, wondering what on Earth is going to happen next. She also has a fantastic visual style, where Elisabeth’s signature yellow coat is matched by the exact shade on a poster she passes.

Fargeat sometimes likes to observe from a distance, and pulls out of long shots as though discreetly tiptoeing away from someone else’s screaming match. Her closing moments, in imagery and composition, are impeccable, and she continually bounces between the beautiful and the grotesque.

Moore and Qualley are both called upon to do a good amount of full-body nudity, as well as silent reflection in character. They are both convincing. Moore particularly elicits our sympathy, even as we wish her Elisabeth would make different choices.

But the further we go into THE SUBSTANCE, the more questions we have. One huge one is exactly how much Elisabeth and Sue share. We are told from the Substance pitch video that Sue is entirely made from Elisabeth’s DNA. They clearly have the same memories (otherwise, Sue wouldn’t know where she is or what she’s doing), but they don’t seem to actually experience each other’s lives as their own.

When each of them separately calls the voice that answers the calls to the Substance help line, whoever he is keeps reminding them to think of the other as “me, not she.”

But if Elisabeth isn’t having fun as herself in Sue’s body, why would she think of them as the same person? Indeed, why would she continue with the process? This isn’t a new Elisabeth, it’s somebody else with Elisabeth’s DNA, essentially a different-looking clone.

Then there’s the matter of what constitutes “better in every way.” Sue is physically healthier and her skin is more toned, but we can’t really contrast her personality with Elisabeth’s, because neither of them seem to have any significant social relationships.

We see that Elisabeth is so anxious about her appearance that she may literally not be able to face other people. But Sue, free of this issue at least, doesn’t seem to be trying for meaningful interaction, either. Sue doesn’t seem any more intelligent or any more capable of contentment without external validation than Elisabeth is. So, apart from being defined that way by others (mostly men who are shown to be fairly horrible individuals), how is Sue “better”?

This is clearly the main point we’re meant to be interrogating. But we’re given so few clues along these lines that we wind up asking more about the storytelling than what it’s trying to convey.

THE SUBSTANCE can be viewed through so many different lenses that watching it is something like looking at the eye chart at the optometrist’s office. Is it a parable about mothers who want to live through their daughters, and daughters who want to be free of their mothers but can’t quite sever the connection? Is it a metaphor for addicts who see their sober and high selves as almost two different beings? Is it a straight if fabulist critique of the demands that show business places on women?

Maybe all, maybe some, maybe none. In any case, THE SUBSTANCE is one of the wilder trips involving alter egos, Hollywood and transformation to land in theatres.

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