The Substance

The Substance
Official poster
Directed by	Coralie Fargeat
Written by	Coralie Fargeat
Produced by	Coralie Fargeat Tim Bevan Eric Fellner
Starring	Demi Moore Margaret Qualley Dennis Quaid
Cinematography	Benjamin Kracun
Edited by	Coralie Fargeat Jérôme Eltabet Valentin Feron
Music by	Raffertie
Production companies	Working Title Films Blacksmith
Distributed by	Mubi (United Kingdom and United States) Metropolitan Filmexport (France)
Release dates	19 May 2024 (2024-05-19) (Cannes) 20 September 2024 (2024-09-20) (United Kingdom and United States) 6 November 2024 (2024-11-06) (France)
Running time	141 minutes[1]
Countries	United Kingdom United States[2] France
Language	English
Budget	$17.5 million[3]
Box office	$6.4 million[4][5]

The Substance is a 2024 satirical body horror film co-produced, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. The film stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid. An international co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States^[2] and France, its plot follows a fading celebrity (Moore) who decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself (Qualley), unknowingly giving herself horrifying side effects.

The Substance premiered on 19 May 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in its main competition section, where Fargeat won Best Screenplay. The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and the United States by Mubi on 20 September 2024, and is scheduled to be released in France by Metropolitan Filmexport on 6 November 2024.

Elisabeth Sparkle, an Academy Award-winning actress and host of a decades-popular TV aerobics show,^[6][7] is fired on her fiftieth birthday and is subsequently involved in a car accident after seeing one of her billboards being taken down. At the hospital, she receives a flash drive from a nurse labeled "The Substance", which promotes a serum that, when injected, creates a younger, more beautiful, more "perfect" version of the user, though the two are still connected as one. After some deliberation, Elisabeth orders and injects the product, a single use "Activator", causing a younger version of herself to be born from a slit in her back.

The younger form, adopting the name "Sue", must inject herself with a "Stabilizer" serum extracted from the unconscious Elisabeth each day. The two are required to switch bodies every seven days without exception, with one resting unconsciously and the other living out in the world. Sue is hired back onto Elisabeth's old show and quickly ascends to new heights of fame and admiration. When Elisabeth is forced to switch bodies with her, however, she continues to struggle with a deepening sense of inadequacy, loneliness and low self-esteem.

The contrast between Elisabeth and Sue grows increasingly stark; Elisabeth begins indulging in overeating and alcohol while Sue addictively extracts more Stabilizer to avoid having to switch bodies, causing Elisabeth to age rapidly. Elisabeth contacts the supplier, who tells her that she can either keep obeying the switches or terminate the Substance, neither of which will restore her past appearance. Elisabeth relents and continues to abuse the Substance as Sue.

As weeks pass, Elisabeth is reduced to a haggard, elderly woman due to Sue's addiction. When Sue is invited to host a highly anticipated live New Year's Eve special, she extracts enough Stabilizer to be used for three months. However, on the eve of the special, Sue runs out of Stabilizer and is forced by the supplier to switch back to Elisabeth. To her horror, she is now a hairless and deformed hunchback.

Desperate, Elisabeth disguises herself in heavy clothing and obtains a new serum to terminate Sue's existence. However, still yearning to feel admiration, she stops at the last second and revives Sue, rendering both of them conscious and severing their connection. Upon seeing the near-empty serum, Sue kills Elisabeth, before leaving to host the New Year's Eve show.

Unable to stabilize herself due to Elisabeth's death, Sue's body begins to rapidly deteriorate. In a bid to save herself, Sue tries to create a new version of herself with leftover Activator. Instead, she inadvertently creates "Monstro Elisasue", a grotesque hybrid of the two. Elisasue goes to the live broadcast and shocks the audience. The horrified spectators erupt into violent chaos, culminating in the hybrid's head getting decapitated, grotesquely regenerating and bursting with blood. As the audience becomes drenched in Elisasue's blood, the hybrid manages to escape outside before collapsing into a pile of entrails.

The face of the original Elisabeth emerges from the remains as a blob, crawling toward her neglected star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Elisabeth finds solace by positioning herself on the star and gazing at the Milky Way, eventually merging with the star as she melts. The next day, her bloody remains are cleaned up by a floor scrubber.

In January 2022, it was announced that Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley would star in the film, with Working Title Films producing and Universal Pictures distributing. Coralie Fargeat would serve as director, but also as producer alongside Working Title co-chairs Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan.^[8][9][10] It was co-produced by Blacksmith, a Paris-based studio created by Fargeat that same year.^[11][12] In February 2022, it was announced that Ray Liotta had joined the cast.^[13] Liotta died in May 2022, which led Fargeat to later recast the role with Dennis Quaid.^[14]

Filming was projected to begin in Paris in May 2022.^[15] In August 2022, Deadline Hollywood reported that the film was "currently in production."^[16] Later that same month, Qualley confirmed in an interview with W that she was working on the film.^[17] Filming officially wrapped in October 2022.^[18]

The Substance was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 19 May 2024.^[19][20] The film received a standing ovation, with conflicting reports that the applause lasted 9 minutes,^[21] 11 minutes,^[22] or 13 minutes.^[23]

Universal Pictures, which originally signed on as the distributor through a deal with Working Title Films, stepped away from the project. Multiple sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the studio was "worried about the prospect of releasing the film".^[24] Prior to its Cannes debut, Mubi acquired worldwide rights to the film for $12.5 million,^[3] planning to distribute it theatrically in North America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Latin America, Benelux as well as holding rights for Turkey and India, with its sales company subsidiary The Match Factory handling worldwide sales.^[25] The Substance opened in theaters in the US, UK, Latin America, Germany, Canada and Netherlands on 20 September 2024.^[26] Metropolitan Filmexport acquired French distribution rights from The Match Factory,^[27][28] and will release the film on 6 November 2024.^[29]

As of September 27, 2024^[update], The Substance has grossed $3.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $3.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $6.4 million.^[4][5]

In the United States and Canada, The Substance was released alongside Transformers One and Never Let Go, and was projected to gross around $3 million from 1,949 theaters in its opening weekend.^[30] The film made $1.3 million on its first day, including $512,000 from Wednesday and Thursday night previews.^[3] It went on to debut to $3.2 million, finishing sixth at the box office.^[31][32]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 262 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Audaciously gross, wickedly clever, and possibly Demi Moore's finest hour, The Substance is a gasp-inducing feat from writer-director Coralie Fargeat."^[33] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[34] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an 80% overall positive score (including an average of 4 out of 5 stars), with 75% saying they would definitely recommend it.^[3]

Peter Bradshaw's four-star review in The Guardian called it "a cheerfully silly and outrageously indulgent piece of gonzo body-horror comedy".^[35] David Ehrlich of IndieWire graded the film an A, calling it "an epic, audacious body horror masterpiece... an instant classic. The most sickly entertaining theatrical experience of the year".^[36] Nicholas Barber of the BBC awarded the film four stars out of five, while singling out Moore's performance: "Ripping into her best big-screen role in decades, Demi Moore is fearless in parodying her public image."^[37] Phil de Semlyen's five star review in Time Out says it is "Moore who glues it all together, going full Isabelle Adjani-in-Possession in a vanity-free performance full of bruised ego, dawning horror and vulnerability".^[38]

Owen Gleiberman in Variety praised the film's director: "Coralie Fargeat works with the flair of a grindhouse Kubrick in a weirdly fun, cathartically grotesque fusion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Showgirls."^[39] Radhika Seth in Vogue called it an “audacious piece of filmmaking ... the most exciting release to have debuted on the Croisette so far" and that it was her "current pick to win the Palme d'Or".^[40] Damon Wise in Deadline said it is "a riotous, dreamlike horror-thriller that ends in a delirious symphony of blood, guts and otherwise undefinable viscera".^[41]

Wendy Ide of The Guardian praised The Substance for the film's feminist perspective of older women, making note of how other female-led horror films like Carrie or Rosemary's Baby center on themes of menstruation and childbirth. She wrote that The Substance, in contrast, "not only offers a female perspective on women's bodies, but also argues that things only start to get properly messy once fertility is a dim memory."^[42]

New York Times critic Alissa Wilkinson made note of the film's satirically exaggerated camera angles and shots, depicting the female characters in a way "that feels reminiscent mostly of porn". She wrote,

In the end that's what The Substance does best: not just remind us about the absurd standards for female beauty and the destructive power of celebrity, but turn the mirror back on us. The sharpest critique isn't about bodies, but about the way we've trained ourselves to look at those bodies, and the effect that has on our own. The movie is, appropriately enough, a mirror, and our discomfort reveals our own hidden biases and fears about ourselves. Being older, being famous, being seen, being loved, being usurped by someone younger and hotter—it's all here. Nothing like a mirror to remind you what lurks beneath.^[43]

• The Substance at IMDb
• The Substance at MUBI