Have you tried The Substance? This bloody and bonkers horror-comedy from French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) has gone from one of the buzziest titles out of 2024's Cannes Film Festival to one of the most polarizing movies of the year, beloved by some and hated by others. (That didn't keep it off our Best Films of 2024 list!) But its reputation doesn't matter in this moment.
Whether or not you like or loathed The Substance, it's a sublime pick for kicking off a new year and a new you. Not only does this gnarly movie's climax fittingly involve its heroine's big night as the hostess of a New Year's Eve spectacular, but also her journey of self-loathing to self-acceptance is ultimately weirdly inspiring.
Hear me out. And yeah, spoilers ahead.
The Substance gruesomely probes damaging beauty standards.
Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a Hollywood actress who has a star on the Walk of Fame, an Oscar nomination in her filmography, and a long-running workout show on TV. But as Elisabeth turns 50, youth-obsessed L.A. turns on her hard. Not only does the heartless producer, Harvey (a shellfish-guzzling Dennis Quaid), fire her for daring to age, but he also puts out a want ad for a younger model who shares her sparkle. Note: As a man, Harvey gets to be old, repulsive (in his manner of eating and speaking), and seen in various gaudy suits.
By casting Moore as Elisabeth, Fargeat gives an instant metatextual tweak to The Substance. This American actress has been a sex symbol for decades, proudly displaying her body in movies like Indecent Proposal and Striptease, as well as that truly iconic pregnancy photo by Annie Leibovitz, which graced the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991. But as women mature, we are urged by a society repulsed by aging to hide ourselves away (hide our sparkle) or transform ourselves into cosmetic reimaginings of youth. Moore explores this trap by doing both through Elisabeth's story.
In The Substance, Moore displays her own aging body frankly, as her character stares nude into a bathroom mirror with apparent dismay. Make no mistake, Moore is a beautiful woman. But Fargeat selects angles that are not just unflattering but alienating, reflecting the body dysmorphia that Elisabeth suffers from. She sees her body not as it is but as it is not, comparing herself against what she used to look like — as displayed in the massive promotional photographs for her show. Her defeated expression seems to lament, "There's only so much working out and make-up can do." So, when she's offered "the substance" as a chance to reinvigorate her youth, this fading star is quick to accept, despite all the red flags of secrecy and sketchy pick-up locations. For anyone who's clicked an anti-aging quick-fix ad online, the allure is familiar, though Fargeat pushes this substance to extremes.
The Substance illustrates the dangers of external validation.
From the putrid neon liquid comes a gruesome birthing process that splits Elisabeth's back in two, allowing the rise of Sue (Margaret Qualley), whose skin has never known a wrinkle, whose body is taught, tight, and pornographically proportioned. Naturally, Harvey chooses her to replace Elisabeth, and the workout show becomes more hyper-feminine, with glittering pinks as Sue's signature color, and more hyper-sexualized, with close-ups of her body pushing in from ogling to objectifying to unnerving. The rules of The Substance demand the women alternate weeks being active. While Sue is on her active week, Elisabeth lies naked, inert on the bathroom floor. When they swap, Elisabeth remembers nothing of Sue's experiences and feels trapped inside her home by her insecurities. So, why does she continue with the experience?
Well, for one thing, Elisabeth doesn't seem to have a life or identity outside of her work or stardom. She has no friends or family, so her view of herself is entirely reliant on external validation from fans. While she can't experience the thrill of the cameras on Sue, she can see the billboard of the It Girl outside her window. She can hear the fawning of the lusty neighbor next door. She can listen to the talk show interviews, where the host is enamored with Sue's brash charms. These glimpses of Sue's success feed but don't satisfy her. Perhaps this is why Elisabeth becomes fixated on eating large amounts of junk food and decadent French cuisine, in scenes that are shot as glistening and twisted as if she's part of Leatherface's family. Elisabeth has a hole inside her that external validation can no longer fill, nor can her feasts. Her self-loathing is kicking her into out-and-out self-destruction.
Meanwhile, Sue has some social life outside her work, as she's shown galavanting with friends and hooking up with various men. But she too is fed by fame; external validation is her very reason for existing. Soon, her need for fame drives her to feed on what life Elisabeth has left, leaving the older woman a withered crone. Physically, Elisabeth becomes the witch opposite Sue's picture-perfect princess, essentially externalizing her fears about aging. Then, like any villain worth her fairy tale, she tries to kill her pretty nemesis. But giving up the bad habit of chasing external validation isn't easy. Ask anyone who has quit Facebook, Twitter, or doomscrolling.
The Substance's twisted ending is the motivation you need for 2025.
After a prolonged and bloody battle, Sue comes out on top. But — as the instruction cards warn — they are one. There's no escape from who they are. Like Elisabeth, Sue begins to fall apart. On the day of her big shoot, her glistening teeth pop out one by one. Her polished fingernails flake off. Her ear drops right off her head, leaving a bloody hole. So, she runs home to seek the substance. Trying to reactivate the process leads to an unexpected rebirth that combines Sue and Elisabeth in a monstrous new configuration: Monstro Elisasue.
Her skin is twisted around her body, her arms poking out at horrific angles. Teeth protrude from beneath her clavicle. Elisabeth's yowling face quivers on her right shoulder blade. Her ears are so malformed that she has to pierce random spots of her lumpy head to wear her glittery earrings. But there's something inspiring in her persistence. Where Elisabeth couldn't find the confidence to go out with an old high school friend, repeatedly wiping away her make-up and trying again until she gave up altogether, Monstro Elisasue perseveres. She puts on the dress, earrings, and a version of make-up that makes her confident, and she confronts the world.
Fargeat gives us a vision of the praise and applause Monstro Elisasue imagines receiving upon her return to the studio. Of course, that's not what the world will offer. Amid the sleazy razzle-dazzle Harvey has planned for the New Year's Eve spectacle, Monstro Elisasue is a horror show. The lights come up to the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey, reminding us of the moment when the primates see the monolith and lost their minds. It's a moment of divine and demented cinema — and a warning. The crowd will not embrace her. They will gawp and gag and scream. They will call her a "monster" and "freak." They attack her. And she defiantly cries out, "It's me! I'm the same!"
But she's not the same. Monstro Elisasue is a new year, new you version of herself — someone who can look into a mirror, see how's she's changed, and finally feel worthy of love. She's also free in a way neither Sue nor Elisabeth could be, because she doesn't remotely fit the beauty standards of this world and yet dares to be seen anyway. And there's something more. This collision of Monstro Elisasue and the world is Elisabeth's nightmare made real: being seen as she see herself and being rejected for it. And Fargeat delivers the worst-case scenario with a repulsive relish.
Violence follows and much, much, much more blood. Monstro Elisasue escapes, but leaves in her wake a flood of gore. She'll then fall on the sidewalk and be shattered into gooey, fleshy bits, with only the remnants of Elisabeth's face remaining animate. And that slop of skin, teeth, and determination finds her star on the Walk of Fame. In this moment, as she looks up to the palm trees and the stars, she smiles, with no one watching. She sees glitter falling upon her. She hears the praise she dreams of. Then, she melts into the cracks in the star and the pavement. Gone, but not forgotten.
The end is not a happy ending, but there's happiness to be found in this ending.The Substance plays not just as a satire of Hollywood's rigged game against women, but also as a spectacular example of catastrophizing made cinematic. By dreaming up the worst of worst-case scenarios, Fargeat invites us to look at our own personal obsessions, and see their ridiculousness. By embedding us in the cage of self-loathing that Elisabeth built around herself, made rancid with rotting food and listless binge-watching, Fargeat urges us to see the bars we erect around ourselves. By making Sue — a persona that's pretty, perfect, and adored — a vampire who feeds on Elisabeth's life force, the filmmaker urges us to consider what we sacrifice by what we put out into the public sphere. And when Elisabeth is splattered on the sidewalk, staring at the stars, Fargeat pleads with us to imagine what it might take for us to feel so free.
So, in 2025, embrace yourself, warts and all, and be the Monstro Elisasue you want to see in the world.
The Substance is now streaming on MUBI.
