I have to say, watching terrible things happen to terrible people can prove to be the most fun you can have in ages – especially in this time of vapid reality shows and dead-eyed social media celebrities. In an effort to feed our hunger of wanting to watch self-obsessed posers with bloated amounts of self-worth get a humorous dose of reality, director Greg Jardin is happy to pitch in with It’s What’s Inside, a comedy thriller with a sci-fi twist that sees a bunch of privileged friends get to know each other way too personally.
Be warned, if you’re bad with names or faces, or you have the attention span of a piece of chalk, this film might be a bit of a mountain to climb as the central identity crisis hits maximum speed around halfway through – but if you can keep up, this is a prime example of shitty people with shitty personalities getting shitty comeuppances. Think Bodies Bodies Bodies meets Freaky Friday – so Bodies Bodies Bodies Swap, then…
On the night before the wedding of Reuben and Sofia (who have smooched their names into the retch inducing amalgam of #Reuphia), the groom has opted to have something of a mini high school reunion with with his old gang to really get the party started. Joining Rueben is successful influencer Nikki, wannabe music star Dennis, artist Brooke, Buddhist Maya and bickering couple Cyrus and Shelby and the latter pair are undergoing something of a relationship crisis due to their sex life becoming flatter than a two day old glass of lager. But even with Cyrus’ preference to masturbation over sex, there’s still plenty of other issues between them to throw up countless red flags all over the place. However, once this group get together, it seems like the good times are about to roll, however, when it’s discovered that their mutual friend, Forbes, has been invited despite no one seeing him since an altercation in college saw him get expelled, curiosity is peaked. But diffusing the potential awkwardness is the fact that he’s arrived with a suspicious suitcase on his person and proposes that the group play a strange game.
You see, Forbes is an inventor, and he has created a machine that gives you the opportunity to swap minds with another person with the flick of a switch, and what he proposes is pretty wild. The rules are everyone gets hooked up to the contraption and has their minds beamed into random bodies with the object of the game being to correctly guess who is in who’s body. Obviously, a child of four could tell you that this is an idea that could go horribly wrong, but what can I say, booze and drugs make convincing bedfellows. However, despite some reservations from a nervous Cyrus, everyone else is predictably dazzled by this trippy new experience – but it doesn’t take long for some of the players to start fucking with the rules and let some of their personal issues dictate some highly dubious decisions.
I named dropped Bodies Bodies Bodies earlier on and that’s because if you took to Halina Rejin’s comedy pseudo slasher/whodunit, the chances are you’ll also take to Jardin’s fiendishly complex sci-fi headfuck, as it takes similar amounts of pleasure from putting ignorant, petty people in the worst situations situations imaginable and then letting them stew for your entertainment. In fact, gathering atrocious people together in a group and puncturing their delusional bubbles has gotten quite the push by Rian Johnson’s Benoit Blanc series, but even the drawling centrepiece of the Knives Out series would be hard pressed keeping track of all this. Obviously, we’re dealing with the usual array of shallow tweeters, gaslighting boyfriends, talentless party animals and jealous wannabes, but what really makes It’s What’s Inside so satisfying is a zippy visual style and a concept so bewilderingly complex to pin down, it’s actually devilishly fun trying to keep up.
Firstly, Jardin seems to know when exactly to keep the premise simple and when to push it to the natural extremes where no one, not even the characters, are able to keep up. Alternating between spelling things out by switch to a sort of red-hued “personality vision”, the director is able to deliver the suitable levels of drama by fading out the exterior and focusing on who is actually inside to lock into revealing who is who when it’s most vital. But as for the rest of the film, good luck, because part of the fun is constantly losing track who is who to the point that it’s probably a good thing that it’s on Netflix, as it allows you to pause and compare notes. However, while various characters instantly start take creepy advantage of the situation, the stakes raise exponentially when a shocking accident occurs that leaves the group two bodies down with two minds stranded and chaos is allowed to reign.
In order the bolster the more outlandish aspects of the film, Jardin, drenches whole sections of the film in neon lighting and nails you with eccentric music choices to the point where it almost feels like he’s been possessed by the ghost of Dario Argento’s Suspiria. Nailing us with rapid-fire montages to confuse us further while simultaneously trying to explain things, part of the joke is that the premise is nigh-impenetrable to anyone hoping to skim through it with a phone in their hands. Just when you think you’ve got a hold on things, things change up yet again as all the remaining players get more and more desperate when the option of hijacking someone else’s “better” life becomes an option. However, it all cumulates in a gargantuan rug pull that adds yet another element of stress with a almighty twist that reframes everything that’s come before.
If I’m being honest, while the cast do their jobs well portraying each of the duplicitous friends, most of them remain recognisable archetypes to try and keep things remotely simple (flighty spiritualist, gaslighting mansplainer, etc.), and we don’t get to spend quite enough time with them to see if the actor’s portrayal of different roles remains consistent, but each one his enough beats to keep the thread going. However, while all of the performers get to show off a variety of personas, it’s the trio of Brittany O’ Grady, Alycia Debnam-Carey and Reina Hardesty that resonate the most as they negotiate the grand theft body ramifications of the Shelby/Nikki thread.
Some will just see the film as having to spend time with a truly awful batch of people and shut it down instantly; but for those who revel in black comedy that sees entitled, selfish, delusional people stab each other in the back for their very identities, switch your brain over to It’s What’s Inside.
Witty, sharp and hilariously complex by design, It’s What’s Inside may sometimes be slightly undone by being a bit too smart for its own good, but it moves like a firework, is twice as colourful and five times as volatile. Black comedies about shitty people may be a dime a dozen these days, but tale it from me – It’s What’s Inside that counts.
🌟🌟🌟🌟