The Substance (2024) Movie Ending Explained, Themes Analyzed & Body Horror’s Subversion Of Beauty Politics (2024)

Why Was Elisabeth Sparkle Fired?

The scene cuts to a long-running aerobics television show called “Sparkle Your Life with Elizabeth” in which an aging former actress Elisabeth Sparkle serves as a contemporary fitness guru, who, with a leotard-clad chorus, takes viewers through high-intensity aerobics routines. She ends her session with a flying kiss to the audience and goes to the loo to freshen up where she overhears her chauvinistic producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) on the phone demanding a replacement for Elisabeth, citing her advanced age as the determining factor.

Elisabeth looks at her reflection in the mirror nearby and notices the subtle ravages of time: wrinkles, sags, and fine lines on her body. Her self-assurance and confidence begin to wane, eroded by the cruel contrast between remembered vitality and present reality. So on the very occasion of her fiftieth birthday, she is unceremoniously dismissed by Harvey seeking a fresher, younger face.

Disheartened and feeling the insecurities of middle age, Elisabeth drives home, her thoughts clouded by the day’s bitter disappointment. As she passes a billboard featuring her image being removed, she gets distracted, leading to a catastrophic car accident. Upon awakening in the hospital, the doctor informs that she is almost completely unharmed.

On breaking down thinking about her future, an incredibly handsome nurse (Robin Greer) with a distinct birthmark on his right arm examines her spine and tells her she is the perfect candidate. He slips a flash drive into her coat pocket, wrapped in a handwritten note that reads: “It changed my life.” Outside the hospital, Elisabeth meets Fred (Edward Hamilton-Clark), the nerdy guy she went to grade school with, who still sees her as the “most beautiful girl in the whole wide world.” Fred hands over his phone number so that they can reconnect over dinner.

What Is The Substance?

Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?

Back at her apartment, Elisabeth plugs the flash drive in and finds that it contains the marketing video of a revolutionary serum known as The Substance. This elixir assures the creation of a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” counterpart of herself. The advertisement promises that one single injection unlocks the DNA of the recipient, starting “a new cellular division that will release another version of you.”

However, the serum’s transformative power comes with a warning: there must be a symbiotic relationship between the two versions: one week for one and one week for the other – a perfect balance of seven days each. Above all, the recipient must not forget, “YOU ARE ONE. You can’t escape from yourself.” Believing it to be a gimmick and a faux scheme, Elisabeth throws away the flash drive.

Elisabeth goes to a bar dressed elegantly to uplift her spirit but finds herself alone while her gaze drifts to a youthful couple, their laughter and whispers weaving a spell of joy. A pang of wistfulness stirs within, as she feels envious of their radiant vitality, unlined faces, carefree smiles, and the effortless connection that only comes with youth. On reaching back to her apartment, she feels disgusted and throws up. She again gazes at herself in the bathroom mirror with smudged mascara, feeling inadequate and unlovable, fragmented by self-doubt and despair.

On seeing her life-size photograph in her blue leotard on the wall, a relic of bygone stardom, she succumbs to a wave of revulsion. The once-celebrated image now mocks her, its glossy façade masking the cracks of a shattered reality. She throws a snow globe at the photo and the destructive act symbolizes Elizabeth’s rejection of the entertainment industry’s artificial allure, the glitz and glamour that once enthralled her, now exposed as a hollow façade.

Where Did Sue Come From?

Elisabeth weary of her waning fame resolves to reclaim her youthful radiance. After much deliberation, she retrieves the flash drive from the trashcan and calls the number to order The Substance. The next day, she finds the casting call for the aerobics show in the newspaper looking for the next Elisabeth Sparkle who must be youthful, vivacious, and between the age bracket of 18 and 30. Feeling angry and resentful, she checks through the mail to find an access card numbered 503. She goes to the address mentioned in the phone call to find a decrepit place hiding a cleaner office.

She collects the package numbered 503 with the help of the access card and heads back home. The package contains an assortment of items – first, a vial of eerie green liquid labeled Activator; a cord to “Switch”; needles of all kinds, including those designed to extract a “Stabilizer”; packets of liquids dubbed “food matrix” and “food other self.” The product comes with clear instructions – activate once, stabilize every day, and switch every seven days without exceptions.

The next scene shows Elisabeth looking at her body in the bathroom mirror, feeling insecure about the imperfections of her body. Elisabeth injects the single-use activator serum and feels nothing at first, but then she collapses. A ghastly metamorphosis unfolds in which her pupil splits into another eye. Her back splits open and a naked, vibrant, younger version of herself crawls out in a grotesque, fetal state – sticky and nascent. This younger duplicate, christened Sue (Margaret Qualley) embodies the very essence of Elisabeth’s bygone vitality.

This twisted rejuvenation ritual has transformed Elisabeth into a vessel for her youthful surrogate. When Sue emerges, she sees Elisabeth’s body on the floor, seemingly dead, and looks at the mirror, staring at the idealized version borne out of Elisabeth. When she throws up, she immediately sews Elizabeth’s wound at the back and attaches a life-sustaining “food matrix” to her body.

Why Does Sue Need To Stabilize Her Other Self Daily?

After leaving Elisabeth on the bathroom floor, Sue gets acquainted with herself and her sensual body. The next day, she takes a shower and finds herself bleeding from the nose and almost loses consciousness. She quickly extracts Stabilizer fluid from the base of the spine of Elisabeth, the primary body, or ‘Matrix.’ She injects herself with the Stabilizer fluid and feels rejuvenated. The dual bodies, interconnected by a shared consciousness, rely on a delicate balance to sustain their existence. Sue, the secondary body, or ‘Other Self,’ requires daily injections of Stabilizer fluid, extracted from Elizabeth to sustain herself or her body will start to deteriorate.

The mind inhabits one body for seven days, then transitions to the other using the proprietary Switch cords. The Matrix requires a full day to replenish the Stabilizer reserves, necessitating a weekly alternation between bodies. Both bodies are inextricably linked, their separation impossible without risking catastrophic consequences. This extraordinary arrangement establishes the profound interdependence of the dual bodies, each essential to the other’s survival. The mind, switching between hosts, must navigate the intricacies of a double life, bound by an unbreakable symbiosis.

Does Sue Replace Elisabeth On The TV show?

Sue embodies everything Elizabeth has lost: fame’s intoxicating rush, adoration’s warm glow, and opportunity’s limitless promise. Sue goes to the audition and effortlessly secures Elizabeth’s former role on the TV show, captivating audiences with her luminescent presence. Captivated by her stunning physique and irresistible charm, Harvey swiftly offers her a spot on the show, despite her unconventional availability schedule – every other week, she’s inexplicably unreachable. A compulsive techno soundtrack signals Sue’s ascendance in the same industry that discarded Elisabeth. Sue injects the Stabilizer daily and gets into the routine of photoshoots and aerobics exercise regime for the show.

As the seven-day cycle concludes, Sue initiates the switch by attaching the Switch chords that enable the exchange of blood. The exchange accomplished, Sue’s body collapses relinquishing control and Elizabeth awakens, her mind reintegrating with her physical form as she adjusts to her own body once more. While Sue is collapsed on the bathroom floor, receiving “food other self,” Elisabeth gorges on food, having spent a week in starvation.

She takes a shower and goes to meet Harvey who dismisses her with a retirement gift. She spends her time scheduling the transition, watching TV, and getting the refill kit for the next week. Elizabeth adheres to the strict seven-day cycle, switching between bodies with precision. After a week, Elisabeth performs the switch and Sue wakes up. Sue drags Elizabeth’s naked and unconscious body down a strange, dark corridor to a hidden room along with the life-size photo of Elisabeth that adorned the living room.

What Went Wrong When Sue Misused The Substance?

Billboards herald Sue’s triumphant rise and it culminates in “Pump It Up with Sue,” a wildly popular fitness show. Her stardom is cemented, yet this glamorous façade conceals something ugly. Every other week, Sue’s vibrant persona succumbs to hibernation, surrendering to Elisabeth, Elisabeth reemerges in her same old face and body. This cyclical exchange allows Elisabeth to inhabit Sue’s youthful, enhanced body, indulging in the trappings of fame and beauty. Their alternating existence echoes the classic tale of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” recast as a haunting allegory of the culture of cosmetic transformation.

While Elisabeth is locked and hidden, Sue indulges in life’s hedonistic pleasures: whirlwind trysts, decadent soirees, and unbridled freedom. On one such occasion, while she is about to have sex with Troy (Oscar Lesage), she starts bleeding from the nose, having exhausted her seven days. Without performing the switch, she extends her tenure in the younger body by taking one more dose of the Stabilizer serum from Elisabeth’s spine, misusing the Substance.

This results in the rapid aging of one of Elisabeth’s fingers, a stark reminder that every borrowed moment comes at a terrible cost. Elisabeth contacts the supplier to reverse the devastating alteration to her body but she learns that what has been used on side one is lost on the other side. He warns her that “there is no she and you” and they are one. Elisabeth must either respect the balance or cease using The Substance, neither of which will restore her youth. Seeing Sue’s aerobics routine on TV makes Elisabeth flustered and unsettled.

Why Didn’t Elizabeth Go On The Date With Fred?

On her way back from picking up one of her refills, Elisabeth dashes into a diner fraught with anxiety that she is being followed. A dishevelled old man speaks to her who is spotting a distinctive birthmark on his hand. Elisabeth realizes that the older man is the youthful nurse who first introduced her to the transformative substance. He tells her that Elisabeth deserves to exist and she matters and forewarns Elisabeth that her younger counterpart will continue to drain her life. The nurse ominously asks Elisabeth if Sue has started “eating away at her,” but Elisabeth is so shaken that she runs away from the older man – unaware of the gravity of the warning.

Elisabeth meets Troy on returning to her apartment and it propels her to call Fred, her high school admirer, and arranges an evening out with him. She dresses up in a low-cut, dramatic red dress and elbow-length black evening gloves for the date, looking stunning and confident. However, when she takes a look at the perfect body of the unconscious Sue, her confidence wanes. She stands in front of the mirror, reapplies her lipstick, adjusts her hair, and fusses over the final details of her makeup and outfit. When she tries to leave, she is tormented by her own reflection comparing herself with the alluring and attractive figure of Sue on the billboard.

Read More: The Substance (2024) Movie Review: Old-age Refuses Oblivion in Coralie Fargeat’s Demented Body-Horror

She is back in front of the mirror once again. Seeking modesty, Elisabeth wraps a scarf around her décolletage, suddenly self-conscious about revealing too much. Elisabeth meticulously applies pink blush, followed by a layer of glossy lip finish. She wears her signature yellow coat and tries to leave, but again feelings of self-loathing creep into her, looking at the ultra-flexible body and dewy complexion of Sue. Paralyzed by insecurity, she smudges the lipstick and makeup across her face and never makes it out the door for the date.

What Made Elisabeth And Sue Resent Each Other?

Meanwhile, Elisabeth spirals into heavy drinking and binge eating on her active days. Sue complains to the supplier about needing more time for herself. But the supplier again reminds her that there must be balance and despite the switching, they are one. When Sue is offered the chance to host a major New Year’s Eve special by Harvey, she seizes the opportunity. Desperate to further her career, Sue extracts a week’s worth of Stabilizer serum apart from the allotted seven days to secure the coveted Vogue cover. After the switch, Elisabeth is horrified to discover that the left side of her body has withered with age. Elisabeth briefly considers stopping the experiment when the supplier offers a way out.

Elizabeth sinks deeper into despair, confined to her own deteriorating body. She binge-eats compulsively, watching Sue’s programme on television, her success a constant reminder of Elizabeth’s own failures. Elizabeth’s turbulent emotions are displayed through her violent food preparation, where she expresses her contempt for Sue, who is oblivious to Elizabeth’s anguish. When Sue makes scornful remarks about Elisabeth’s show as “Jurassic Fitness” and disparages her accomplishments in a callous interview, we realize they have mutual loathing and resentment for each other.

This destructive cycle intensifies, with Sue awakening to find their shared apartment vandalized. Exhausted and disillusioned, Sue resolves to perpetuate her youthful form indefinitely. Sue impulsively extracts enough Stabilizer to maintain her form for three months, only for her supply to run out on the eve of the coveted New Year’s Eve broadcast.

Desperate, Sue contacts the supplier, only to be informed that replenishing the serum requires switching back to Elizabeth. The swap unleashes a horrific metamorphosis: Elizabeth’s once-youthful form is horrifically transformed, now into a near-hairless, hunchbacked monstrosity.

The Substance (2024) Movie Ending Explained:

What Led To The Creation Of Monstro Elisasue?

Desperate to halt Sue’s destructive stabilizer abuse and the further aging of her body, Elizabeth procures a termination serum aimed at severing their toxic bond. However, still craving validation, Elizabeth hesitates, abandoning the treatment mid-course. Regretting her decision, she tries to revive Sue as she is the only lovable part of Elisabeth.

When Sue starts bleeding from the nose, Elisabeth initiates a switch by exchanging their blood. This lapse revives Sue, shattering their symbiotic equilibrium and rendering both entities fully conscious. Upon discovering Elisabeth’s attempt to terminate her and seeing the near-depleted serum, Sue’s fury erupts. In a fit of rage, she brutally murders Elisabeth, before leaving to host the New Year’s Eve extravaganza.

It’s New Year’s Eve and Sue’s big night. Without Elisabeth’s existence, Sue’s sexy clone body rapidly disintegrates. Her teeth are falling out, a fingernail detached off, and her right ear withered away. Panic-stricken, Sue flees to her apartment and tries to create a new version of herself with the leftover Activator serum. “SINGLE USE!” the instructions scream out on the screen, but Sue has already jabbed it into herself. The cycle of horror starts all over again. A bizarre, flesh-like mass bursts forth from Sue’s spine.

This mutated entity “Monstro Elisasue” is a grotesque, hybridized abomination blending Elisabeth’s and Sue’s features. Its surface is a chaotic tapestry of unblinking eyes, gnashed teeth, and distorted breasts. Elisabeth’s anguished face, frozen in a perpetual scream, is grotesquely embedded in the creature’s back – a haunting testament to their inextricably entwined fates.

What Happens At The New Year’s Eve Special?

Monstro Elisasue wears an improvised life-size photo of Elisabeth’s face, defacing it with crimson lipstick and adorning it with diamond earrings pierced into her own mottled flesh. Satisfied with her handiwork, she marches back to the studio, ready to host the New Year’s Eve spectacle. As Richard Strauss’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” swells, evoking Stanley Kubrick’s iconic “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Monstro Elisasue takes the stage.

However, as she begins to address the audience, the mask falls off. The audience, initially enthralled by her Elisabeth Sparkle mask recoils in horror when she reveals her true, grotesque form. “It’s me!” Elisasue screams as a disembodied breast erupts from her mouth. The crowd’s revulsion turns violent; they assail her with cries of “monster!”

A bystander wielding a baseball bat, strikes Elisasue with fatal precision, severing her head. The stump erupts in a geyser of blood, gushing forth in a spectacular, Carrie-esque cascade, showering the terrified onlookers. Despite decapitation and dismemberment, she regenerates, shape-shifting into new, ever-more-twisted forms.

The mutilated remnants of Elisasue stumble out of the studio, collapsing into a mess of viscera. Amidst the carnage, Elisabeth’s original face emerges, crawls towards her neglected star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, gazes up at the stars, and smiles, Her face melts and dissolves, leaving behind only a memory. The next day, a floor scrubber methodically eradicates the bloodstains, expunging the gruesome evidence of Elisasue’s demise.

The Substance (2024) Movie Themes Analysed:

A Feminist Critique On The Invisibility Of Ageing Women

Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” subversively challenges the oppressive societal beauty standards that obsessively seek to control the aging of women’s bodies. The film boldly tackles the invisibility of aging women and posits that they are pressurized into extreme body modifications and surgical interventions to maintain youthfulness, only to mock them as grotesque parodies or render them invisible and expendable.

Their value is reduced to memories of their youthful allure when they were most commodifiable. In “The Substance,” Elisabeth is forced to make a Faustian bargain after being fired by the studio executive for being too old, who in turn, demands a younger, sexy, and spotless replacement for her. Never known to be sidelined, she creates her youthful doppelganger, Sue. But just like youth replaces the old in the entertainment industry, Sue hijacks her life.

Wrapped in absurdity and ruthless satire, this be-careful-what-you-wish-for fable reminds us that the quest for eternal youth can leave you as a bloody puddle on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The scene where Elisabeth looks at the mirror after getting ready for a date and tries to alter her makeup to make herself more beautiful and perfect, ending up feeling disgusted and loathing shows how aging creates a cycle of anxiety, exclusion, and invisibility.

The film poignantly asserts that our older selves are inextricably linked to our younger selves. However, instead of waging war against time, we must cultivate self-acceptance and kindness. Fargeat’s message is clear: true liberation lies in embracing our evolving bodies and in aging gracefully rather than battling them. By accepting our aging selves, we reclaim our dignity and challenge societal norms that equate worth with youth.

A Satire On Hollywood’s Hypersexualization Of The Female Body

Fargeat’s sumptuously styled film is a feminist critique of the hypersexualization of the female body in Hollywood productions and the societal expectations for women’s bodies in general. The theme of the film resonates with the feminist theory – how women’s bodies are reduced to objects for the male gaze and consumption, how beauty standards regulate women’s behavior, reinforcing patriarchal norms, and how women’s bodies are performative, constantly negotiating societal expectations.

In “The Substance,” Elisabeth is dismissed to be replaced by a younger, sexier version, exposing the entertainment industry’s dark underbelly which makes people feel interchangeable, with some ruthless figures, epitomized by Harvey, who wield absolute control over the careers and lives of others. This toxic hierarchy perpetuates a culture of objectification, where aspiring stars are reduced to mere commodities.

The film serves as an attack on the male gaze that sexualizes women’s bodies, detaching it from the person who bears it. We shouldn’t mistake that Fargeat’s perpetual butt and breast shots as acquiescence to male pleasure, rather it’s scopophilic confrontation. The close-up shots of Sue gyrating and grinding and swiveling butt during the “Pump it up!” routine is not at all an exaggeration, but a reality promoted in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

Considering the horde of celebrities who opt for plastic surgery in the entertainment industry, this film puts into perspective the pressure women have to go through to conform to unrealistic ideals, which in turn, leads to a culture of ageist societies. The film authentically renders how show business sidelines those who don’t fit the narrow mold, creating a cycle of exclusion and anxiety. Demi Moore embodies Elisabeth in her entirety, reducing herself to her appearance, a result of the allure and horror of the industry’s focus on beauty and youthfulness.

Body Horror’s Subversion Of Beauty Politics

According to Fargeat, “Body horror can be a really powerful weapon of expression for female directors” and she used the same to channel her own anxiety about turning forty. “The Substance” is a Cronenberg-esque body horror with a twist – instead of providing mere gratuitous shock value or sadistic pleasures, this visceral slice of body horror transcends and elevates itself to a thought-provoking exploration of aging, body image, beauty standards, and cosmetic industries.

The genre of body horror is utilized as a resistance to deconstruct the performative identity of women’s bodies. The film explores the psychological impact of beauty pressure and youthfulness, subverts objectification and commodification, and exposes the absurd standards for female beauty.

The film poignantly critiques the entertainment industry’s oppressive beauty standards through Elisabeth’s tragic narrative. Desperate to conform, she attempts to defy nature’s inevitability – aging and loss of youthfulness – by creating a younger, artificial version of herself. This unnatural pursuit culminates in the monstrous embodiment of Monstro Elisasue, symbolizing the abject and challenging societal norms.

The devastating climax underscores the film’s scathing commentary on self-worth and self-destruction within the entertainment industry. Moreover, the fragmentation of Elisabeth’s identity into multiple, distorted forms exemplifies the destructive impact of patriarchal pressure on the female psyche. Through body horror, the film starkly illuminates how societal expectations can grotesquely distort individuality, reducing persons to unrecognizable, commodified entities. This thought-provoking narrative exposes the industry’s exploitative nature, where women are coerced into sacrificing authenticity for artificial, marketable beauty.

Mirrors Of Deception: Appearance Vs Reality

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

Fargeat’s “The Substance” utilizes the motif of mirrors to show our discomforts, our own hidden biases, and our fears about ourselves. Elisabeth’s obsessive gazes into the bathroom mirror reveal a profound disillusionment. The reflection staring back deceives her, distorted by the unrelenting beauty standards of the entertainment industry. As she scrutinizes every detail, her inner turmoil intensifies, exposing the crippling pressure to conform to societal expectations.

The mirror, once a tool for self-reflection, now warps her perception, magnifying flaws and reinforcing the industry’s oppressive beauty norms. Elisabeth’s gaze becomes a symbol of self-objectification, underscoring the devastating consequences of prioritizing physical appearance above all else. This motif exposes the entertainment industry’s toxic obsession with beauty, where individuals are reduced to commodities, and self-worth is measured by superficial standards.

Read More: Women in an Unforgiving World: Exploring Body Horror and Identity in Coralie Fargeat’s ‘The Substance’

The Substance (2024) Movie Trailer:

The Substance (2024) Movie Links:IMDb,Rotten Tomatoes,Wikipedia,Letterboxd
Cast of The Substance (2024) Movie: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid
The Substance (2024) Movie Runtime: 2h 20m, Genre: Horror/Drama

Where to watch The Substance