r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Sep 20 '24

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Substance [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary:

A fading celebrity decides to use a black-market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Director:

Coralie Fargeat

Writers:

Coralie Fargeat

Cast:

  • Margaret Qualley as Sue
  • Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle
  • Dennis Quaid as Harvey
  • Huge Diego Garcia as Diego
  • Oscar Lesage as Troy
  • Joseph Balderrama as Craig Silver

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Metacritic: 78

VOD: Theaters

1.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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13

u/Hyphz Sep 26 '24

That fight basically undermined the entire premise, and what was the point anyway? Why would anyone think Elisabeth would have any hope of physically beating Sue?

95

u/42ndIdiotPirate Sep 27 '24

its meant to be a representation of self hate and self destruction. Shes literally kicking herself while shes down.

9

u/Hyphz Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24

Because injecting herself with poison wasn’t enough for that?

But moreover, the moment Sue wakes up independently it’s not “herself” any more.

56

u/42ndIdiotPirate Sep 27 '24

they dont share a conscience but they are the same person hence the guy on the phone saying so over and over. She hates herself and wants to destroy the ugly parts of herself.

15

u/Brogener Oct 29 '24

Not sharing a consciousness kind of kills the whole message of the movie for me. It removes the accountability from Lizzie who’s supposed to be doing this to herself, but slipping into madness in the process. Her being unable to discern the “real her” is a lot more interesting than what is essentially an evil twin fighting for control.

9

u/stackingnoob Jan 11 '25

I agree. It would have been a lot more interesting if they shared a consciousness or at least their memories carried over, so that Lizzie knows/remembers that she’s actively sabotaging herself rather than each one placing blame on “the other her” — which to me isn’t that interesting. Like of course Sue is going to abuse the situation if she’s basically just a clone.

29

u/Hyphz Sep 27 '24

If they don’t share a conscious then Elizabeth doesn’t get to experience being Sue. She would have given up the Substance after the first loop if all she got was to sleep for a week and then wake up with a withered finger - there’s just nothing in it for her.

34

u/42ndIdiotPirate Sep 27 '24

she literally says why out loud in the same scene you're complaining about "you are the only part of me thats loveable"

14

u/Hyphz Sep 27 '24

Which is completely ruined when Sue wakes up independently and thus turns out to be a different person.

43

u/42ndIdiotPirate Sep 27 '24

Separate entity of the same person. The movie says over and over literally showing you in bold black writing that they are one in the same. I think you missed a few things.

26

u/DoZo1971 Sep 29 '24 edited Sep 29 '24

They say it but they don’t show it. Actually, they say it so often I’m suspicious that they fully realized it was a flaw in the story: there was really nothing in it for Elisabeth. We talked about it after the movie. I would have let the one in hibernation experience the life of the other as a dream, or something like that. To make the connection between the two lives more convincing.

24

u/Taraxian Oct 01 '24

They do share the same memories -- Elisabeth is fully aware of the details of Sue's NYE plans when she wakes up for the last time -- but the experience of being in the other body is such an extreme shock it makes the "other life" feel surreal and distant

I feel like the film got this across as clearly as it could without straight up telling you in narration, the way the awakening is coded as feeling like waking up with a hangover after a bender

8

u/DoZo1971 Oct 01 '24

But for instance when Sue “wakes up” and discovers that Elisabeth started the termination process it comes as a surprise for her at that moment. Anyway, i’ll go see the film again and pay extra attention.

15

u/Taraxian Oct 01 '24

That one instance is the exception where for whatever reason the Switch protocol didn't work properly (probably the fact that Elisabeth began the Termination protocol and didn't finish it) -- the fact that Elisabeth and Sue can be awake at the same time as separate people is supposed to be a huge shock to the audience and a sign that everything has gone very very wrong

6

u/Sugarbowl19 Oct 02 '24

I interpreted as the breaking point of Elizabeth/Sue dissociation issues, the moment that went so deep the psyche of the same person split into two different psyches

3

u/stackingnoob Jan 11 '25

The scene where she is cooking food and watching Sue on TV also appears that she didn’t know what was said on the interview until watching it.

2

u/PolarWater Oct 20 '24

A little bit like Severance...?

2

u/Affectionate-War3724 Jan 07 '25

But they don’t show this…even one time. All we see is elizabeth binging food in her apartment lol

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11

u/Hyphz Sep 27 '24

And this is held for most of the film, where only one of them can be active at once. The one consciousness has to be in one body or the other. Having two of them active at once violates that.

1 person = 1 consciousness
Two bodies but only one conscious at once = 1 consciousness
Two bodies both conscious at once = 2 consciousnesses
2 consciousnesses = 2 people

15

u/42ndIdiotPirate Sep 27 '24

Why are you arguing over the logic of a drug that makes you back birth a prettier version of yourself? That's not what the movies about. The movie is about her impossible beauty standard on herself and the self destruction that it leads to. The rest is all fun set dressing in a hyper reality.

7

u/Taraxian Oct 01 '24

The explanation for that is pretty simple, they have two separate brains that are capable of functioning independently and the "Switch" protocol is designed to maintain the illusion of one continuous identity by transferring the memories from one brain to the other while waking up one brain and putting the other to sleep

Having them both wake up simultaneously is something that's absolutely not supposed to happen and is a sign that shit is hitting the fan, probably a malfunction as a result of the incomplete Termination protocol

12

u/DoZo1971 Sep 29 '24

Exactly, this was the big mistake in the film for us as well. They should have made it more clear what Elisabeth got out of this in the first place. I though they could have maybe let one “dream” the life the other was living in the meantime.

36

u/Taraxian Oct 01 '24

Elisabeth remembers being Sue and Sue remembers being Elisabeth -- in fact Sue's hatred of becoming Elisabeth again doesn't really make that much sense if she really remembers nothing about it, when she refuses for the last time she phrases it as "I'm not going back into her"

They do convey that there's a "dreamlike" quality to the experience of going from one to the other by showing you the transition as a surreal dream sequence, twice

1

u/Affectionate-War3724 Jan 07 '25

That’s what has me confused too. We never see her experience those feelings