The Substance’s 8 Biggest Unanswered Questions

Coralie Fargeat’s gripping horror The Substance deals with many topical issues surrounding aging, feminism, and the dangers of the beauty industry, but there are several questions that remain unanswered when the credits roll. The film follows the life of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famous aerobics instructor who’s subjected to a mysterious substance after losing her job on her fiftieth birthday. The chemical promises to transform her into her best self, but when the truth comes to light, Elisabeth struggles to balance her two identities. The Substance is getting great reviews, and for good reason.

While The Substance is clearly a standalone movie that doesn’t explicitly call for a sequel, there are certain aspects of the narrative that haven’t been answered by the time the story draws to a close. Whether this is for dramatic effect or to keep the audience guessing, it’s obvious that Fargeat knows how to exploit the unknown to make her stories even more captivating. The Substance’s ending might be missing some details, but it’s still extremely effective overall thanks to the director’s keen eye for imagery and metaphorical storytelling.

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8 Does The Substance Cost Money?

Elisabeth Is Never Seen Giving Payment

One of the most puzzling aspects of The Substance that isn’t explained by the film is how exactly this situation works. The acquisition of the chemicals is very cryptic, with Elisabeth turning up to an abandoned warehouse and never interacting with anybody else while she’s there. In this way, the audience is essentially kept in the dark just as much as the characters. This is necessary to uphold the mystery of the story, but even when the film reaches its climax, this aspect of the business isn’t explained. Elisabeth is never shown paying, but she’s referred to as a “client”.

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Presumably, it wouldn’t make any sense for the business to offer this high-end technology to strangers without some kind of payment or deposit. Elisabeth gets her hands on the substance at the recommendation of another client – a doctor who treats her following a dangerous car accident. This unorthodox word-of-mouth approach suggests that the substance could be a kind of pyramid scheme, where Elisabeth would’ve later been roped into recruiting others into the trials – if everything hadn’t gone so wrong in the final act.

7 How Many People Are Using The Substance?

There Are Many Parcels In The Depository

There are plenty of great characters in The Substance, but Elisabeth is the only main figure with any knowledge of the substance. It seems to be an incredibly covert business, kept under the radar to protect the company from any liability if anything goes wrong. Elisabeth never has face-to-face contact with the company, and she only ever speaks to their representative over the phone. However, during her trips to collect the chemicals, it’s shown that multiple other lockers are waiting for the other clients.

The substance’s reach could go much further than the movie seems to suggest.

Elisabeth is also referred to by a number instead of her name, suggesting that many other clients are involved in the program. Given the details of the procedure, it would be extremely difficult to recognize exactly how many people are disguised as their younger selves. Things only went wrong for Elisabeth when she decided to break the 7-day rule – for those who can adhere to the strict guidelines, it would be impossible to distinguish them from any other young person. The substance’s reach could go much further than the movie seems to suggest.

6 Who Is The Substance’s Supplier?

Their Identity Is Confined To A Voice On The Phone

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Despite all the information that’s revealed about the substance, including the detailed process needed to make it work, Elisabeth never learns anything about the people behind the business. This includes those responsible for supplying the chemicals throughout the city, alongside the person who came up with the idea in the first place. Whoever created the substance is notably absent from the story, and while this is almost certainly done to allow the audience to focus on Elisabeth’s journey, it’s information that could definitely have enhanced the film.

However, keeping the supplier’s identity secret is a great way of giving The Substance an extra layer of mystery. It prevents the audience from blaming any specific individual for the events of the film, forcing them instead to examine Fargeat’s themes and how they promote the film’s ideology. There’s no clear villain of the story, which means audiences have to search deeper and think critically to develop their own stance on the narrative. It’s a clever way of forcing audiences to engage with the work by withholding certain details that aren’t strictly necessary.

5 Why Was There Extra Activator Fluid?

Was It A Mistake On The Company’s End?

Close

One small detail that doesn’t play a major role in The Substance, but still raises fascinating questions, is the extra activator fluid that Elisabeth is given when she first accepts the substance. While everything else is carefully measured and split into perfect amounts, the activator fluid is excessive and she doesn’t need it all. This was clearly an intentional choice, but it’s not immediately clear how it serves the film – it’s something that could easily be missed upon a first watch, but it subtly suggests something about the mysterious agency.

The extra activator fluid could serve one of two purposes: firstly, it could prove that the agency behind the substance is fallible and capable of making mistakes. By proving this early in the film with the miscalculated liquids, The Substance drops a small easter egg that immediately distorts the audience’s trust in the company. Secondly, the extra fluid could be a subtle suggestion that what’s to come (Sue using the activator liquid on herself) has happened before, and the company is aware of this danger. This once again paints the company as corrupt and untrustworthy.

4 How Did Elisabeth Survive Giving Birth To Sue?

The Procedure Surely Should Have Killed Her

Although Sue and Elisabeth don’t look alike in The Substance, the two characters are actually born from the same DNA. As soon as Elisabeth uses the activator serum on herself, Sue is created and forced from her body through a bloody slit in her back. The unconventional birthing process is one of The Substance’s most creative scenes, and it immediately cements these two characters as separate parts of the same whole. However, the physical pain and lingering injuries that Elisabeth sustains during the birth would almost certainly result in death – but she manages to emerge relatively unscathed.

There would be no story if Elisabeth died here, and it’s her co-existence with Sue that propels much of the narrative forward.

The simple answer to Elisabeth’s survival is that it’s necessary for the film. There would be no story if Elisabeth died here, and it’s her co-existence with Sue that propels much of the narrative forward. However, to give an in-universe explanation to her immunity, it’s likely that the substance has healing properties. It’s a high-end drug that isn’t available to the public, and it must have beyond those that are explained. For it to work at all, it would need to ensure that the subject could survive activation – so Elisabeth’s survival is almost certainly a result of the serum.

3 How Was Elisabeth Selected For The Substance?

Could Anybody Have Been Chosen?

Demi Moore’s Elisabeth makes for a fascinating protagonist of The Substance, but the film’s explanation for why she was selected is largely implied rather than explicitly stated. It’s from the doctor that she first hears about the program after suffering a serious motor accident, but she’s not immediately interested. It takes a while for her to come around on the idea, and eventually, she’s sold. But in order for the substance to work as a company, they must surely target specific individuals who are both suitable for the procedure and unlikely to reveal the serum’s existence to the public.

In this regard, Elisabeth is the perfect candidate for the substance – she’s unhappy with her daily life, she needs to appear younger in order to climb the ranks of her career, and nobody would ask questions if she disappeared for a long period of time. She’s already disregarded at work, so it’s likely that nobody would believe her if she tried to spill the company’s secrets or break the rules. The supplier is clearly very organized and knowledgeable, as displayed by the smooth-running distribution process, so it’s no wonder that they were able to find a suitable candidate.

2 Has The Substance Ever Gone Wrong Before?

It’s Unbelievable That Nobody Has Made Elisabeth’s Mistake Before

This question is largely speculative, but there are some details throughout the film that suggest The Substance’s ending may have happened before. The extra activator serum is the first clue, but the biggest contributor to this theory can be found in Elisabeth’s phone conversations with the call representative. They don’t seem particularly surprised to hear the main character’s problems, but rather annoyed that she didn’t follow the instructions. It’s possible that they encountered these side effects in testing, but his tone suggests an annoyance that he’s suspiciously familiar with.

Additionally, one of The Substance’s main themes is the universal experience of wanting to look younger and more attractive. It would slightly go against the film’s central tenet if Elisabeth was the first client to break the guidelines and spend more time as her “perfect” self. Instead, the story can be viewed as a kind of modern-day fairy tale where Elisabeth represents the whole of humanity and her actions serve as a warning against this kind of behavior. The film is extremely allegorical at times, so this reading makes a lot of sense.

1 Why Does Elisabeth’s Face Emerge At The End?

The Decision Completely Changes The Ending

In the final moments of The Substance, after Elisabeth and Sue have merged into a mutated version of them both and wreaked havoc at the New Year’s Eve party, Elisabeth’s face appears in what remains of the creature. Since the character died just a few minutes earlier, this moment comes as a huge surprise and builds upon what’s already a hugely brash and ambitious ending. However, the emotional weight of this colorful finale manages to pull everything together, as Elisabeth’s storyline concludes in the most fitting and depressing way imaginable.

The celebrity’s face appears in the creature’s remains as a final statement that she’s been irrevocably destroyed by her own selfishness, torn to pieces by the beauty standards and self-competition that’s been slowly eating away at her throughout the film. Despite Sue’s prominence in the final act, the emergence of Elisabeth’s face cements her as the film’s true protagonist – it’s her actions that The Substance is warning against, and her tragic fate that audiences will be left with long after the credits roll.

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The Substance is a science fiction horror film that follows a group of individuals as they uncover the dark secrets surrounding a mysterious substance with otherworldly properties. As they delve deeper into the truth, they must confront the sinister forces driving its production and the catastrophic consequences that follow.

Director Coralie Fargeat Release Date September 20, 2024 Studio(s) Working Title Films , A Good Story Writers Coralie Fargeat Cast Demi Moore , Margaret Qualley , Dennis Quaid , Gore Abrams , Hugo Diego Garcia , Olivier Raynal , Tiffany Hofstetter , Tom Morton , Jiselle Burkhalter , Axel Baille , Oscar Lesage , Matthew Géczy , Philip Schurer Runtime 140 Minutes Expand

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Category: Entertainment