The Substance isn’t, I suppose, very good—but dammit, I liked it anyway. A fable about the perils of remaking oneself to meet the wants of others, it aims to be a feminist Being John Malkovich, and in a smattering of memorable scenes, it succeeds. Unfortunately, the bulk of the film lacks discipline, judgment, and the basic plausibility that even sci-fi and horror movies are expected to provide. (Does this woman have any family, friends, or acquaintances?) I wish, too, that it would have opened itself up more broadly as a relatable tale for media-pressured women (and men) everywhere; instead, as its ill-advised finale makes disturbingly clear, its true interest is in the singular experience of aging Hollywood starlets. The Substance will therefore be remembered best in bits: my memory is already filtering the overlong narrative into a few compelling YouTube clips, generously forgetting the plentiful mistakes that douse the complete work’s Kaufman-esque aspirations and leave it an ugly, graceless, zombified resurrection of classics like Sunset Boulevard and, especially, All About Eve. But hey: it has those bits, doesn’t it?
–Jim Andersen