The Substance
サブスタンス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A fifty-year-old star injects a serum that births a younger self; body horror about being looked at.
On her fiftieth birthday Elisabeth Sparkle, a faded film star with a long-running aerobics show on television, is dropped from it by its producer, Harvey, because of her age. Distracted by a billboard of herself being taken down, she crashes her car. At the hospital a young male nurse slips her a flash drive advertising the Substance, a black-market drug that promises a younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of oneself. She orders it and injects it. Her back splits open and a young woman, Sue, climbs out.
The rules are strict. The two bodies must switch every seven days, one awake while the other lies unconscious, fed through a drip, and Sue needs a daily dose of stabiliser drawn from Elisabeth's spine. Sue auditions to replace Elisabeth, becomes a sensation overnight, and is offered the New Year's Eve special. Elisabeth, in her weeks, turns into a recluse who hates herself. When Sue delays a switch to keep a man in her bed, drawing extra fluid, one of Elisabeth's fingers withers and ages; the supplier warns that the damage cannot be undone. The two come to think of themselves as separate women and to loathe each other, Sue disgusted by Elisabeth's binge eating, Elisabeth by what Sue's greed does to her body. Sue stockpiles fluid and stops switching.
Three months later, the day before the show, the fluid runs out. When they switch, Elisabeth wakes as a hunched, deformed old woman. She orders a serum to terminate Sue, but halfway through the injection she cannot give up Sue's fame, and revives her. Sue, seeing what Elisabeth tried to do, beats her to death and leaves for the studio. Without Elisabeth her body begins to fail, and she injects what is left of the original serum, against the rule that it may be used only once. What emerges is a creature with both women's faces. Wearing a mask cut from Elisabeth's poster, it walks onto the New Year's stage; the audience panics, and blood drenches the studio. Fleeing, the body bursts apart. Elisabeth's face drags itself onto her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, imagining applause, melts into a stain that a street cleaner washes away the next morning.
Starring
Demi Mooreas Elisabeth Sparkle
A faded film star fired from her aerobics show at fifty, who takes a black-market drug to produce a younger self.
Elisabeth Sparkle’s story
Elisabeth turns fifty on the day Harvey drops her from her long-running aerobics show. She throws away the flash drive a nurse slipped her, then calls the number anyway, and after the injection a younger self, Sue, climbs out of her back. In her own weeks she hides at home, binges and watches Sue on television. Asked to dinner by an old schoolmate, she sees Sue's billboard from the window, redoes her make-up again and again, and never leaves the flat. Each time Sue takes extra days, Elisabeth ages further. Hunched and deformed, she starts to inject a serum to end Sue, cannot give up Sue's fame, and revives her. Sue beats her to death. At the end her face alone drags itself onto her star on the Walk of Fame and melts away.
Margaret Qualleyas Sue
The young woman born from Elisabeth's body, who takes over her career and wants more time than the rules allow.
Sue’s story
Sue climbs out of Elisabeth's back, young and flawless, wins the audition to replace her and becomes a star overnight; Harvey gives her the New Year's Eve special. The rule is a switch every seven days, and she breaks it: to keep a man in her bed she draws extra fluid from Elisabeth's spine, and later, disgusted by Elisabeth's binges, she stops switching for three months. Waking to find that Elisabeth tried to end her, she beats her to death. As her own body fails, she injects the rest of the serum, meant for one use only, to make a new self. What emerges has both women's faces. It walks onto the New Year's stage in a mask cut from Elisabeth's poster; blood drenches the studio, and the body bursts apart in the street.
Dennis Quaidas Harvey
The television producer who drops Elisabeth for her age and makes Sue a star.
Why it matters
The Substance is about what happens to a woman when the industry she gave her life to decides she has expired, and about the harder fact that she has learned to agree with it. Harvey fires Elisabeth for turning fifty, but the cruelty that follows is her own, turned on a younger self who embodies everything she was told to be. Coralie Fargeat shoots the leering camera so close that it becomes absurd, and The New York Times's Alissa Wilkinson read the film as a study of the male gaze. It won Best Screenplay at Cannes, earned Demi Moore a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, and took the Academy Award for makeup and hairstyling; it also became Mubi's highest-grossing film. The question it leaves is not how to stay young, but why ageing should feel like a crime a woman commits against herself.