The award winning 2024 film “The Substance” written and directed by Coralie Fargeat is a brutal commentary on societal expectations of women in the media. The film covers the invention of a new type of drug that allows the ingestor to create a separate version of themselves in a younger and more beautiful form. The main character begins to abuse the rules of the substance in an attempt to stay young and beautiful forever, but this creates a dark series of events.
Part 1: Elisabeth
The film starts off with a large title card introducing our main character, Elisabeth Sparkle. The opening scene of the film is the creation of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the progression of the star’s condition throughout the years. The star slowly wears down and is forgotten throughout the years, being the first of many pieces of symbolism throughout the movie. This star represents how Elisabeth was forgotten in her life after her prime. She was described as very popular in her youth, being successful in acting and having her own workout show. However, as she grew older and wore down more, she became forgotten just like her Hollywood star.
We are first introduced to Elisabeth on her birthday as she is leaving work after overhearing her boss talk badly about her older age. The scene cuts to Elisabeth having lunch with her boss, who we learn is in fact letting her go. On her way home, she sees a billboard with her face on it getting torn down. Distracted, Elisabeth runs a red light and crashes her car. While in the hospital, one of the nurses notices her dejection in regards to her age and slips a mysterious hard-drive in her pocket without her noticing. When Elisabeth gets home and watches the contents of it, she discovers that the drive contains an intriguing video. The video is an advertisement for something called “The Substance” which is described as an injection that will create a new, younger, and better version of yourself. Elisabeth initially throws out the hard drive and forgets about it, but after longing further for her former self, she digs it out of the trash and orders the product.
After retrieving the product from a rather run down and questionable building, Elisabeth injects herself in a way that resembles that of a drug addict, and undergoes her transformation. This scene is extremely brutal and not for the faint of heart, which also sets up the mood for the rest of the film. She falls to the ground where her back then splits open and births a new and younger version of Elisabeth, which she names “Sue”.
Part 2: Sue
Immediately after emerging from the lifeless looking body of Elisabeth, Sue looks in the mirror and admires her new and younger self. She is undeniably beautiful with a slim body, perfect skin, and bright eyes. She sews up the split open back of her former self and leaves her LA penthouse to walk the roads of LA. In an attempt to relive her glory days, Sue auditions for the part that will replace Elisabeth’s old job. Unquestionably, Sue gets the part and begins to receive the love that she had once had in her past. However, The Substance has rules that Sue/Elisabeth find it hard to follow as time goes on.
The Substance Itself
As the film progresses, an understanding of how the drug works is needed. Though the video advertisement made it seem like there would be no problems, it is not that easy for Elisabeth/Sue to follow through with. The way that the substance works is that once the new self is created, you can only stay in that body for a week before you must transfer back into your formal self, in which you must then stay in that body for a week in order to create a healthy balance. During the week while in the newly created body, the new self must inject themselves with the spinal fluid of the old self in order to stabilize the body (yes, it is very gross). The advertisement makes it very clear that the two bodies are “one” and one cannot “be” without the other. It heavily emphasizes the need for balance between the two selves, but does not specifically say what will happen if the balance is not kept correctly. However, we see first hand what happens when Sue decides that she doesn’t want to live as Elisabeth again.
The Balance
The first time Sue pushes the balance is while she is in the middle of a romantic night with a handsome young man and her nose starts to bleed, making her realize that her weekly limit is over. In an attempt to salvage the moment, she runs to the bathroom and injects herself with the fluid. Her plan worked, however, it came with a consequence to her former body. Once she is changed back into Elisabeth, she realizes that one of her fingers has turned very wrinkly and old looking. After realizing this change is irreversible, she promises that she will not do this again as Sue.
The Substance came with not only physical side effects if not treated carefully, but also mental ones. When it is turn for Elisabeth’s week, she becomes heavily depressed and begins to over-eat, shut herself into her home, and leave her living space a mess. She starts to feel worthless in comparison to Sue, so she hides herself from the world instead of trying to boost her self esteem. Her confidence drops so low that at a point during her week she tries to meet up with an old high school friend, but she breaks down trying to leave her house as she looks at the billboard of Sue standing outside her window. She is forced to stand her friend up in an anxious break down, feeling as if she is not good enough.
On the other end of the spectrum, Sue becomes over confident, and begins to go further against the balance. Seeing how sloppy and depressed Elisabeth stays during her weeks, often leaving the penthouse a mess, Sue decides more and more times that she does not want to transfer back to Elisabeth. Each of these times, the body of Elisabeth wears down more and more, and though they are one person, it seems that two egos have been created while in each body and a hatred has formed for one another.
Elisabeth looks in the mirror after she stayed in the body of Sue for over three months, and what she sees is a horribly deformed, and barely able to move, old and disabled woman. Terrified of what she’s done, she immediately calls The Substance help line and orders a termination injection for Sue.
Ending: Monstro-Elisasue
Elisabeth receives the termination kit for Sue, but immediately after injecting most of the vial, she realizes that she doesn’t think she could live without her, stating “I’m nothing without you.” This unexpected change in Elisabeth’s mind creates a glitch in the system: Sue and Elisabeth are awake at the same time. It seems that the difference between thoughts of the two characters has created an entirely new consciousness in Sue. Upon realizing that Elisabeth was trying to kill her, Sue viciously attacks her, leading to a very bloody death for the body of Elisabeth.
Though slightly regretful of what she has just done, Sue must move on to prepare to host the live New Years Eve celebration which she has been looking forward to for months. While getting ready, she begins to realize something is very wrong when her teeth start to fall out. Sue gets in the elevator and her fingernail falls off when she presses the button. Realizing her time is coming to an end without Elisabeth’s body alive, she runs back to her apartment. In a final attempt to save her life and ignoring the warning on the package directions, she injects herself once again with the Substance in a hope to create an even better version of herself. Instead of a better version being created, however, a hideous, terrifying, and partially decomposed monster is created named “Monstro-Elisasue” stated by a large screen card. The creature is a mixture of the bodies of the two women, finally combining Sue and Elisabeth as one.
Feeling confident due to her overwhelming love as Sue – even though it is apparent to the audience that this will not end well – the character gets ready in her new, unsettling form and goes to host the show. The monster puts on a cutout of Elisabeth’s face – not Sue’s – representing how Elisabeth has finally started to love herself for who she was. As expected, the audience is mortified at what they see on the stage, and they begin to attack her. The monster starts to spurt blood all over the crowd in a horror-esque manner that seems to reference scenes from other horror classics like Carrie and The Shining. As she runs away, the character trips and causes the entire body of the monster to explode over her Hollywood star, creating a full circle moment. The only surviving piece of the deformed body is the face of Elisabeth, which crawls on top of the star and stares at the palm trees as visions of glitter fall onto her face, and she dies. The movie comes to an end with a final shot of the star being cleaned once again.
Symbolism
The entirety of the film is filled with pieces of symbolism that subtly reference the message that the movie is trying to convey: the extreme extent that women go to to conform to the beauty standards of our society is ripping the mental and physical health of so many women apart. Elisabeth represents all of the older women who are jealous of the more valued younger women in the general public, so they turn towards extreme methods such as plastic surgery or drugs to make themselves appear younger, even if it makes them look worse in the end. We learn at a young age that being youthful is more excepted by society, making young women dread growing old(represented by Sue hating Elisabeth). The extreme close up gore of the film is meant to make the viewer uncomfortable, in an attempt to display how gruesome the body modifications can become. Smaller elements of symbolism are also sprinkled throughout the film:
- The Substance injection: The drug is taken in a way that replicates that of heroin addicts. This represents the ways that celebrities may turn to addictions in an attempt to forget this feeling of being forgotten by society. The substance itself is also a form of an addiction in the way that Elisabeth becomes addicted to being Sue and feels like she is nothing without her. She needs her “fix” of Sue to remain happy at all.
- Shrimp scene: While the studio-head is telling Elisabeth that she is being let go due to her older age, the camera zooms in to extreme close up shots of the man eating shrimp and throwing them on the table. The director has stated that she purposefully made this scene uncomfortable, as the meaning goes much deeper. The shrimp he is eating represent the women that are used and then thrown away even though there are still valuable parts of them.
- Male characters: All of the studio-heads in the film are men, similar to the actual industry in which most of the higher ups are men. The men of the studio could also be seen as a representation of how all men view and judge women in society, even if they are ugly themselves. Elisabeth’s boss is even named Harvey, a reference to Harvey Weinstein, a former network executive that was infamous for sexually harassing and abusing his female actors.
- Bathroom: In the film, a lot of the scenes and transformations take place in the bathroom as the character stares at herself in the mirror. This relates of course to how people get ready and change themselves in a bathroom, but at a certain point in the film, Sue creates a new hidden area where she hides Elisabeth during her own weeks. This can represent how we may hide parts of ourselves away in an attempt to appear more beautiful.
- Elisa-Sue: The monster at the end of the film is an exaggerated representation of what may happen when you don’t accept yourself for who you grow into and try to change this. The director has stated that the monster is a physical manifestation of the insecurities we hide coming out into a monstrous form and the two bodies finally coming together to represent this. I, however, think that this monster can also represent botched plastic surgeries on celebrities and the way that drugs can affect celebrities and others who try to change themselves. Mentally, as well, if you don’t accept who you are and are always comparing yourself to others, it will drive you to madness.
Final Thoughts
This film is an excellent representation of how women are treated in society in relation to their age and the way that they look, created through body-horror. I really enjoyed the symbolism and deeper meaning of the film, it is unlike anything I have ever watched before and the meaning has really stuck with me since I watched it. The director did a superb job with creating the story line and the use of practical effects to create the unsettling gore of the film. I loved how the film was meant to make the viewer uncomfortable in an attempt to really set the message in. I watched this film with my mom and we both agreed that we could relate to the film from different perspectives regarding our different ages; it was interesting to see how different kinds of women can relate to the movie in different ways. I hope others who watch the film will find comfort in the fact that this is something so many people go through. The normalized ageism and “pretty privilege” in our society is damaging to women especially, and I hope this film will make people reassess how harmful it really is and ask, why is our world like this and what can we do to change? I believe that this film will become a classic body-horror film through the ages that will continue to represent what many women have gone through in regards to their personal insecurities. The Substance has already won multiple awards and is in the running for multiple Oscars at the 2025 show, including best picture.