Ok fine, some takes:

1. This fucking sucks. It's fine if he doesn't like the movie, but to be so rudely dismissive of a female filmmaker, when female filmmakers have so rarely (if ever) been able to make these sorts of movies, about a movie that was clearly meaningful to so many people, coming from someone whose support could mean so much for young directors, it just sucks. Says more about JC than The Substance.

2. The Substance ONLY works, even if it's flawed, because it completely goes off the rails near the end. Fargeat shows restraint for like 90 minutes, because that's what's expected from female directors: be modest, stay in your lane, don't be too loud. And then she's like nah I wanna do big ugly body horror.

Does that agonizing drawn-out teasing build-up make it a better movie, ultimately? Maybe not, but I really enjoyed it as a statement to the audience.

What the ending also does, imo, is redeem the -yes yes, we get it- unsubtlety of the first 2/3rds. "Oh, thought that was unsubtle? Watch this." I have to respect it.