WHEN THE WRITER DOESN’T SHOW: ASSUMPTIVE NARRATION AND THE SUBSTANCE

As with most stories The Substance reveals its narrative hold early. Our tale, if you don’t know it, centers on aging former A-list actress Elisabeth Sparkle, who right at the start of the film is fired from her aerobics show (which we are led to believe is a big comedown from her earlier success) in order to make room for someone younger, “hotter”.

This sexist ageist firing is framed by the film as a calamity, an apocalypse. It is also, in the parlance of scriptwriters everywhere, the film’s inciting incident — everything that follows cascades from that calamitous loss. Given how important the firing is to both the film’s Conflict and Character, one would assume The Substance would work overtime to dramatize the Stakes — to explain precisely why this particular firing matters so much for Elisabeth at this particular moment. I mean, it’s one thing to be fired when you're earning 10K a month in residuals, when you’re happily married to someone well-employed, when you have friends and other avenues of support. And another thing entirely to be fired when you’re in debt and your medical insurance is the only thing keeping your anxious ass in therapy.

As any storyteller knows — what makes a good story is not an unjust firing — what makes a good story are the dramatic particularities of an unjust firing.