The Substance

We watched it last week after hearing how Demi Moore got shafted for best actress. Probably the most bat shite movie I’ve ever seen. Can’t decide if I even liked it or not just that it’s insane. My fiance’ absolutely hated it and went to bed pissed after she’s not big on body horror or gore

I loved it.

But as a woman I really felt it. I needed that last act and all of the silliness, even though I’m not really into body horror.

I still cried on the way home

The movie is supposedly a critique of Hollywood's unrealistic beauty standards etc

However I found it a far more effective condemnation of these aging celebrity women who butcher themselves trying to look young and end up looking like freaks.

At no point in time did I feel sorry for Demi's character.

In the movie her character has had a long and successful career. Nothing lasts forever. Every pro athlete is forced to retire at some point. The desperation to stay famous and relevant is just as gross as these supposed youth and beauty standards.

Blaming the beauty standards is just such an odd way of framing the problem, as though these aging women are still entitled to their celebrity status indefinitely. People preferring youth, beauty, and vitality is baked into every fiber of our genetics, it's not a problem that we need to fix.

I watched it a few weeks ago. It's a decent flick that takes the word "gratuitous" to new heights and does provide some interesting commentary on female beauty standards and on the lengths some people may go to to hold on to their youth. The movie really lost me at the end with the over-the-top gore and body horror, as it felt like the narrative-driven plot was thrown out the window for some shock value.

The acting was great. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were fantastic, and aside from a few cringey lines of dialogue (and the ending sequence), I thought the script was solid. It is, however, a bit campy and one-dimensional. They really missed an opportunity to explore the part when Demi meets someone else who has taken the Substance also. Pair this with the fact that the idea of a magical potion that makes you young again has been already been done in this same way before (see Death Becomes Her from the 1990s), and you have a fine movie that is worth a watch, but won't be a movie you want to watch twice.

I have seen some people say that this movie will likely be a cult classic in about 20 years. That's probably accurate.

Acts One and Two were decent enough, it was when they (admittedly) channeled David Cronenberg for Act Three that it went off the rails.

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Great premise and first hour of the movie and then it’s ridiculous

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I finally watched this movie over the weekend. Your assessment is spot on. I thought it had some opportunities to be good then it just went total shite at the end.

I somehow thought that there would be a way for her to go back to what she was by recruiting someone else to take the jab. I thought that was the point of the nurse putting her on the path. I dont even know why the guy showed back up in the diner.


The entire second half was total shite

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It was a mess of a movie. Just low rent body horror with a badly written script and nonsensical plot that went off the rails early on.

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What made no sense to me is that the young version of Demi was a separate being, so old Demi had no way of basking in the renewed adulation from the world, plus the young version had to identify as a different person for obvious reasons, so as far as I can tell Demi got no perceivable benefit at all from this procedure. Am I missing something here?

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That part was strange. The guy did the substance for what? To be a nurse? Seems like he didn't shoot very high. I mean Demi's younger character became a national phenomenon.

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I felt as if he had control of his demon side and respected the balance. I think he learned his lesson early and parts of him were decayed.

Being a nurse would make sense though if you had to switch off bodies every other week, enough money/scheduling flexibility that he could work his arse off for a certain number of days and then enjoy the youth he has when he's not working. His expenses would be minimal while old. He was still miserable though, his life would become waiting for the next week and the aging process in your original body would continue on. He could have been on it for years for all we know (if he wasn't just decayed from abusing the fluid) The nurse does ask her if "she was eating away at her yet?"


Sue gave me some Icarus vibes and got too close to the sun. Elisabeth is already famous, with the youth it's almost like she has perfect economics based on her knowledge of what to do to succeed.


I can see others finding it superficial and one note but I found alot of deliberate choices by the director. I thought the movie was excellent and a complete what the frick.