Review: THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

Demi Moore in The Substance (2024)

November 21, 2024

The Substance (2024) is campy, stylish and filthy. This film is probably the most mainstream take on the body horror genre I’ve seen, however, the genre is used really tactfully. The theme is straightforward: beware the plight for beauty, youth, and male acceptance. With such a streamlined theme, coupling that with the grossness of the body and monstrosity allows for more nuance without it being spelled out for us; when constantly performing and striving for a “better version of yourself” you create a complete dissonance between your body and self. Not only does this resonate for feminine people who perform for the patriarchy each day, the struggle between the self and the body speaks to a larger theme of gendered performance. 

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a fading star, and her once popular aerobics show is fading with her. She’s fired from the show on her 50th birthday by her cartoonishly evil show producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), who says she’s too old. While she’s driving home she gets distracted by her own billboard being taken down and gets into a car accident. The nurse treating her notices her spine and says she’d be a ‘good candidate’, giving her a flash drive with a number on it. She takes the flash drive home and watches it. It advertises The Substance, a drug that can make you a younger, better version of yourself. It has some stipulations though: every seven days you must switch from one self to the other, and you must never forget that the two selves are one. You must respect the balance. Elisabeth gives in to temptation, orders it, and takes The Substance. After taking it, a new younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley) erupts from her spine. With her new and improved body, she auditions for her own show and gets the part, unveiling herself as Sue. Men love her, ratings skyrocket and Sue becomes everything Elisabeth dreamed of, making going back to Elisabeth’s body every week even more difficult.

The constant perspective shifts could make it difficult for the audience to continue to empathize with the main character(s), however the cinematography elevates and hyper-stylizes  perspective and gaze masterfully. Particularly the shrimp-eating scene does this really well, they don’t have to caricaturize Harvey with schmoozy dialogue to prove he’s a bad dude, they just make him eat shrimp and shoot it in the most disgusting way instead. Relying more on cinematography than dialogue to characterize, plus the amazing acting performances that were given (especially Demi Moore, oh my god) drew me in as an audience member, it felt interactive and refreshing. They often flip the idea of gaze on its head, from the casting directors staring down the camera, to the constant mirror shots, the shots of the camera iris widening, and finally when MonstroElisaSue’s deformed body literally (and metaphorically) obscures her perspective,  The inward gaze has become so gruesome that it’s become infected and it oozes onto the outside, on display for the world to see.

The style in this film is so precise, especially the use of graphics and the repetitiveness of the font, it brings a lot of cohesion to the story. I love this anachronistic world we’re placed in. Like it’s modern, but we’re doing aerobics on TV in bright leotards for some reason, and the studio looks straight out the 70s. This out-of-time design mixed with the setting of L.A. is first of all colorful and gorgeous, but also speaks to the timelessness of misogyny and unreachable beauty standards. The filmmakers love for film is so evident, something that I think is missing from a lot of movies coming out right now.

The second act is a bit muddled. With such a direct approach to storytelling, it risks hammering in the theme a little too hard. I felt as if things were a bit too spelled out for me. The back and forth switching between Elisabeth and Sue slowly ramps up as Elisabeth gets more and more deformed, and instead of building dread it’s more like you’re just waiting around and it starts to get repetitive. The first act is paced perfectly, with visual motifs and set-ups that you’re anxiously waiting to pay off. The first act encouraged me to dive right into the film, so by the second act it sort of feels like I’m just wading in the water. However, the third act is anything but meandering.

One of the best climaxes I’ve seen in a long time, The Substance ends explosively. I was pleasantly surprised at how gross they were willing to get with it. Without spoiling too much, I’ll just say that the reveal of the titty was my favorite part of the whole movie. Not only was it shocking, but a perfect indicator of the synthesis between beauty, sex, and nastiness. We prop up our bodies, contort them and paint them to be beautiful and accepted. This film is a good reminder the mouth we put lipstick on is the same mouth that we vomit from. 

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Rating: 🦄🦄🦄🦄

Mickey Morrow is a film studies student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

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