Quite a frustrating watch (not helped, I admit, by the fact that I watched the first twenty minutes of this a number of months ago) because despite understanding that this movie was meant to be stupid and annoying, I found it to be really stupid and annoying. Interesting however was the unglamorous reality of ee immigrant life in the United States that historians are keen to write about with misery and pity but one rarely sees depicted in film or…

The Substance spends two-and-a-half hours insisting its satirical nature upon its audience with such condescending relentlessness that it forgets to actually satirise anything at all.

The film attempts to unravel Hollywood's dehumanising celebrity meat grinder with specific focus on its ageist, objectifying and fetishistic attitude towards women and the beauty standards that it imposes upon them - an honourable cause. Yet, somehow, the characters who seem to come under fire the most throughout the film are the two vulnerable women…