The Substance (2024): All Style, No Substance

The Substance: Substance Wanted

If someone whose brain were turned on eight hours a day from January 1, 2017 to January 1 2024—it doesn’t matter nights, days, mornings, evenings, or whatever else—if the physical organ of their thinking were jacked directly into Twitter (now X, the Everything App) and nothing else, if they received every datum of information about the universe, from cinema to current events, from that website, that brain would produce The Substance (2024).

Ostensibly, Coralie Fargeat has made a body-horror picture. Demi Moore plays an aging actress—now relegated to daytime aerobics fame (these kinds of programs inexplicably still exist in this universe). An encounter with a guyliner-sporting nurse reveals to her the existence of The Substance, an injection cum wellness program that births a younger version of yourself, splits you in two. There remains a trade-off. Each version must switch every week. Not doing so brings consequences.

Disastrous Results

Moore uses her newfound power to become LA’s exercise queen, Jane Fonda if her aerobics tapes made hundreds of millions for Netflix. Her lust for youth,

beauty, and power leads her to pursue permanent transformation with foreseeably disastrous results.

There’s no real sense in summarizing the film, because, if you know the premise, you know everything there is to grasp. The director’s idea of “developing a theme” seems to be random intercuts of information we have already seen. Variations sans variation. Got some downtime between sequences? What if the instructions for using The Substance flashed on screen for the tenth time? Did you maybe look at your phone when they first explained not to not switch back? Oh well, better flash the instructions again.

Dearth of Dialogue

I fear the whole thing suffers from a disease quite common on contemporary TV programs: everything must be underscored over and over, lest the intended audience miss a thing.

The film’s dearth of dialogue only makes matters worse. Imagine, if you will, a Gaspar Noé film—neon lights, deep black abysses, pounding music, sparse dialogue—without any of the charm. Clip in interminable sequences of shots of the young actress’ butt—naked, working out, sitting still, slightly gyrating. Scale back the dialogue even a bit more to ensure there is more room for shots reminding the audience of the rules behind The Substance. Pad it out to over two hours. Witness this film.

What It Could All Even Pretend To Signify

The Substance believes (I believe) that it makes a statement about the way the media and entertainment industries treat women and their bodies, how fame and the desires implanted by the world around us reorganize our very psyches. Why else would Demi Moore destroy herself? It accomplishes none of this because it does not trust its viewers to draw inferences, to make sense of what is going on, and what it could all even pretend to signify. Any chance for actual reflection—reflection presumably intended during the long periods of “silence”—goes nowhere because the movie will not stop reminding us about its themes. It shows all the delicacy of the blunt end of a hammer.

Its visual style also suggests a desire to let the audience meditate. Nearly every shot is perfectly and soullessly composed. Every frame a painting; every shot a work of art. The colors pop. The whiteness of the bathroom in which she transforms seems both otherworldly and so familiar, the Platonic Ideal of a school wash closet.

They Beckon With A Kind Of Sterile Beauty

But in this pursuit of perfection is precisely the problem: the shots don’t seem to mean anything. The way a director shoots a scene ought to reflect the purpose of the image. What does she want to convey? How does this angle or that distance underscore or complicate what the actors and mise-en-scène show us? Here, the images just seem “cool.” They call for a viewer’s attention; they beckon with a kind of sterile beauty. And what could be more welcome in the age of the Netflix Original Movie? The engagement they have to offer, unfortunately, is fleeting. The movie watches like a Tumblr mood board. All style, no substance.

Fast And Dirty Exploitation Flick

I have heard some defend the film as good ole b-movie shlock. It’s hard to even know what to say about this idea. As a connoisseur of cinematic filth, it’s hard to see any such redeeming qualities here. Fargeat frequently evokes body-horror classics like The Fly (1986) and Society (1989). But these are arty films, surely not just b-trash. And her highfalutin visual style makes me reticent to assume she wants the viewer to associate her work with the likes of Switchblade Sisters (1975) or Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). And that’s not even to mention the length. What kind of fast and dirty exploitation flick is solidly over two hours?

I admire Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s performances. That’s about the best I can say so far as The Substance is concerned. You’ll have more fun with just about any other substance on planet Earth.