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Los Angeles functions as far more than a backdrop in The Substance; as the movie goes on, Elisabeth Sparkle moves through a version of the city that seems to reflect her own emotions. The visual language of the city—sterile modernist homes, empty, creepy streets, and looming billboards—reinforces Elisabeth’s growing sense of irrelevance. Lots of films depict Hollywood as the land of opportunity for the creative and the beautiful, but in The Substance, it’s a machine that discards people as soon as they lose the features that once made them ‘useful.’ Elisabeth once thrived in this environment, but at the movie’s beginning, she is cast aside, and the same industry that once celebrated her now rejects her in favor of younger, fresher faces. The city’s landscape reflects this reality; as soon as she leaves the movie studio after being fired, she sees a massive poster of herself being torn off a billboard. The sleek high-rises and gleaming luxury apartment buildings that surround Elisabeth’s own don’t feel neighborly; they seem to crowd her apartment, confining her inside.  

Elisabeth’s home also reflects her own transformation. At the start of the film, her grand, pink-carpeted apartment is carefully maintained. There’s a life-size poster of her on one of the walls, and the whole space is pristine and open. As she loses control, the environment begins to shift. The once bright rooms become darker and more cluttered. Mirrors and screens—always present, but not previously oppressive— dominate the space. Every reflective surface, including windows, doorknobs, and spoons, reinforce her obsession with her physical appearance. The luxurious surroundings quickly feel more like a prison as she grows dependent on The Substance. Sue then builds an actual prison for her, creating a secret room where she can hide Elisabeth’s unconscious, aging body. 

Another of the film’s most striking settings is the movie studio, which clearly draws inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The long red hallways and the monochrome Modernist rooms mirror the eerie, endless corridors of the Overlook Hotel. There’s a uniform and oppressive use of color everywhere, making the studio as visually noisy as Harvey’s embroidered and gold-encrusted clothes. The doorless hallways of the studio also often stretch forward with no clear end, making the space feel inescapable and claustrophobic. As Elisabeth moves through them, the cinematography lingers on how small and imperfect her body looks against their uniformity. The only other place where the audience sees that much red is in the final scenes of the film, where Monstro Elisasue is soaking the audience of the New Years Special with her spraying blood.  

It's not just the insides of buildings that feel oppressive in The Substance. The imposing Brutalist concrete structures of buildings like the hospital Elisabeth visits are part of the unnerving sense of unwelcomeness that hangs over LA. These buildings are strictly utilitarian; they are buildings with jobs and the way they look reflects that. In scenes where Elisabeth navigates these spaces, the film’s framing often isolates her within the vast concrete walls. It’s visually emphasizing how little space she occupies in a world that once revolved around her. 

As if their other differences were not enough, Fargeat also contrasts the spaces Elisabeth inhabits with those that belong to Sue. When Sue first emerges from Elisabeth, even the lighting in the stark, white-tiled bathroom becomes misty and flattering. When she steps outside, a pinkish-orange filter makes her walk through the LA streets look like a scene from a music video. Where Elisabeth is lit in bright, cold tones that grow increasingly dimmer and less flattering, Sue’s color story is warm and watermelon-hued. Even on the brightly lit sets of Sue’s workout show, the camera pans over her body with an almost pornographic languor. There’s no need to look away from any part of Sue’s body; unlike Elisabeth, she hasn’t been forced to feel shame and disgust when confronted with herself. The setting of this film reinforces its message: in an industry that constantly looks for the next new thing, those who fall behind disappear, and the world moves on without them. 

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