The Substance (2024) review and rewrite

Sometimes it's ok to have a movie with no subtlety whatsoever, especially if the movie blows straight past "blatant" and into "ridiculous". Plus the concept is good (though derivative; I thought about Seconds (1966) and The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890) throughout) and inspired deep emotion in my partner and me. The acting and practical effects are mostly outstanding (with one bad scene by Moore, though I think it's the script's fault more than hers). On the other hand, every single important beat is repeated two or even three times, sometimes literally, and by the end I was waiting for the movie to conclude. The last half hour really dragged. A strong 3/5.

Goofy robe, what's up with the dragon?

Anyway, how I would rewrite/re-edit the movie. (This is something I think about for most artworks -- what would I do differently, to preserve its core and show it in a clearer light?) Lots of stuff is going to stay the same, and so I won't bother listing it. This is just the important changes.

The opening is simply trimmed a bit on every scene. Each one goes on too long, longer than it had to. Give Elisabeth an explicit history of cosmetic surgery. This is probably just a throwaway line, like "Another boob job won't cut it" or similar.

In the long hallway in the TV studio, there are pictures of all the past aerobics instructors lining the walls, in chronological order, plus a big big picture of the current star instructor. Elisabeth's big picture is taken down, and a little picture of her joins the parade of past instructors. Throughout the movie we get a lot (the same number as in the original) of shots of this hallway with Elisabeth and Sue walking up and down it.

Make the poster of young Elisabeth slightly reflective. We get a shot of Elisabeth looking at her poster, close up, with her reflection cast across the face on the poster.

When Sue emerges and leaves Elisabeth on the bathroom floor, that's great. When Elisabeth wakes up, though, she doesn't leave Sue on the floor. She dresses Sue in a nightgown and tucks her in bed. She stares at Sue lovingly.

After Sue gets the part (and she's probably not just a TV aerobics instructor, she's probably a singer or variety show host or something), Elisabeth is energized and excited. She calls that old classmate of hers. Meanwhile they're putting up a billboard of Sue outside her apartment. In the billboard, Sue's picture is obviously edited so she has even bigger breasts and an even smaller waist. Elisabeth scrubs the makeup off her face. Just one trip back to the bathroom mirror this time.

 Elisabeth begins binge-eating and neglecting the apartment. Sue abuses Elisabeth, pinching her, kicking past her as she goes in and out of the bathroom. And of course she takes extra spinal fluid, prematurely aging Elisabeth. She looks at Elisabeth's poster, and we see her face reflected in it, covering the face in the poster. She removes the poster and puts it in a closet.

Elisabeth simply bears the abuse at first. Her hand and leg wither. Then, while she's watching an interview with Sue, she hears Sue saying that she never watched Elisabeth's old aerobics show, and that Elisabeth's show is Jurassic. She is devastated, betrayed. Now she starts to resent Sue for stealing her body and time. For the first time, she refers to Sue as if she were another person. She seriously trashes the apartment and does some kind of unambiguous self-harm. (The binge-eating and neglect are also forms of self-harm, but I want something more obvious.)

Sue drains all of Elisabeth's spinal fluid, as in the original, and stays awake for three months. She blows through her supply way too quickly, dosing twice a day or more to say vigorous and beautiful.

The next few scenes play out almost exactly like the original. The day before the New Year's Eve thing, she runs out of fluid and has to switch back. Now Elisabeth is a crone. Unlike in the original, she can't move fast. She's obviously physically disabled, barely hobbling along. She asks the The Substance people to end the program, and picks up the termination kit. She injects Sue, but has a change of heart. She does not give a little speech about how she hates herself -- that should have been obvious by now, and didn't need saying.

Elisabeth and revives Sue, waking her up with a blood transfusion. Elisabeth starts to say something to Sue. All she gets out is "I'm-" (or maybe "You're-", I'm not sure which) and then Sue attacks her.

The fight is over quickly. Elisabeth tries to crawl away from Sue and ends up in the closet with the poster. Sue repeatedly smashes Elisabeth's face into the reflective poster, killing her. (When we film this, the camera is focusing on the poster. A tight shot. We see the face of the much younger Elisabeth in the poster, and then the reflection of crone Elisabeth hurtling towards it, and then crone Elisabeth's actual face smashing into it, five or six times.)

Sue cries, bathes, dresses, and leaves for the studio. As in the original, her nails and teeth start falling out. She successfully  hides this from the people backstage, at least a little bit. Maybe some people are asking "What's wrong?" or we get distorted sounds of whispering. She limps out to the stage. She smiles at the camera, opens her mouth (toothless) and falls apart, vomiting blood and organs all over the audience. (Maybe there's a shot of Elisabeth standing in Sue's place, smiling and holding out her hands, while the audience cheers. They're not covered in blood, but the stage is. Then back to reality.) She retreats from stage and stumbles to the long hallway. She totally explodes. All the pictures of the past aerobics instructors are covered with blood. The end.

I think my version would be a good deal shorter, hopefully at least 25 minutes. We'd miss out on the monster, which is too bad, but the monster is more goofy than anything.

I would also tone down the oppressive sound design when Elisabeth is awake. It makes sense that Sue lives in a hyper-real world, where every can of Diet Coke is crisp and bubbling and beaded with condensation, but it doesn't make sense for Elisabeth. Her world is greyer and quieter.

If I took The Substance, I would be fine. My very first thought was how I would care for my other body, how much time I would spend cradling my comatose other self. I think it would be worth it for me to take The Substance, just so that I could get outside of my own body and relate to it as other instead of reflexively.