The Substance is a 2024 satirical body horror film written, directed, and co-produced by Coralie Fargeat. It stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid, and follows a fading celebrity who uses a black market drug that temporarily creates a much younger version of herself with unexpected side effects.
An international co-production between France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film had its world premiere on 19 May 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Festival main competition, where Fargeat won Best Screenplay. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and the United States by Mubi on 20 September, and is scheduled for release in France by Metropolitan Filmexport on 6 November.
Plot[]
On her 50th birthday, Elisabeth Sparkle, a once-celebrated, now-faded Hollywood movie star, is unceremoniously dismissed from the long-running aerobics TV show she hosted, with producer Harvey citing her advanced age as the reason. While driving home, Elisabeth is distracted by a billboard featuring herself being taken down, resulting in a major accident. At a hospital check-up, a young male nurse slips her a flash drive advertising The Substance, a serum that generates a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of one's self. After some deliberation, Elisabeth orders The Substance and injects the single-use activator serum, resulting in a much younger version of herself to emerge from a slit in her back.
The Substance establishes a symbiotic relationship between the two bodies: Elisabeth must transfer her consciousness between bodies every seven days, with the inactive body remaining unconscious. The other self also requires daily injections of "stabilizer fluid" extracted from the original via a lumbar puncture to prevent deterioration. The other self, which names itself Sue, is quickly hired as Elisabeth's replacement by Harvey. Her new TV show skyrockets her to fame, eventually being selected to host the broadcaster's major New Year's show. As Sue, she enjoys a confident, hedonistic lifestyle, while becoming an insecure recluse when living as Elisabeth.
After a one-night stand, Sue extracts extra stabilizer fluid from Elisabeth in order to extend the evening's sexual activities. The next morning, Elisabeth wakes to find that her index finger has aged more rapidly. The supplier warns that staying as Sue longer than seven days causes irreversible rapid aging of her original self, and Elisabeth must follow the switching schedule to prevent this happening again. Despite being a single consciousness, both personas begin viewing themselves as separate individuals, and quickly grow to despise each other. "Elisabeth" becomes jealous of Sue's beauty and success, and resents the latter's frequent disregard of the switching schedule, whereas "Sue" is appalled by Elisabeth's constant self-loathing and binge-eating. Following a particularly self-destructive episode as Elisabeth, a disturbed Sue refuses to switch back, deciding to remain as the other self permanently.
Three months later, on the day of a New Year's telecast, Sue finds Elisabeth's body completely depleted of stabilizer fluid. The supplier informs her that the only way to replenish the fluid is by switching back into her original self. When they switch, Elisabeth finds herself horrifically transformed, now a near-hairless and deformed hunchback. Desperate to stop Sue's stabilizer abuse from further degrading her body, Elisabeth acquires a serum designed to terminate Sue. However, still craving admiration, Elisabeth stops before injecting the full syringe of termination serum, proceeding to resuscitate Sue, disrupting their symbiotic balance and leaving both fully conscious. Realizing Elisabeth's intent upon seeing the near-empty syringe of termination serum, Sue flies into a rage and brutally murders her by repeatedly smashing her face into a mirror, stomping and kicking her before leaving to host the New Year's special.
Without Elisabeth, Sue's body begins to rapidly deteriorate, with three teeth, a fingernail and a right ear falling off. In a panic, Sue rushes to her apartment and tries to create a new version of herself with the leftover activator serum, something expressly forbidden by the supplier. This inadvertently creates "Monstro Elisasue", a grotesque hybrid of the two forms.
Elisasue dresses and goes to the live broadcast wearing an improvised Elisabeth Sparkle mask. As the creature gets on stage and starts to speak to the audience, the mask falls off. The horrified audience erupts into violent chaos; a man decapitates Elisasue with a baseball bat and a stump on her body sprays and drenches the audience with blood. What is left of Elisasue escapes the studio and collapses into viscera. Elisabeth's original face emerges, crawls onto her neglected star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, gazes at the stars, smiles, and melts. The bloody remains are cleaned up by a floor scrubber the next day.
Cast[]
- Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle
- Margaret Qualley as Sue
- Dennis Quaid as Harvey
- Edward Hamilton Clark as Fred
- Gore Abrams as Oliver
- Oscar Lesage as Troy
- Christian Erickson as man at diner
- Robin Greer as male nurse
- Tom Morton as doctor
- Hugo Diego Garcia as Diego
- Phillip Schurer as screaming man
- Yann Bean as "The Substance" voice
- Joseph Balderrama as Craig Silver (uncredited)