Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Greg Jardin
Starring: Brittany O'Grady, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood, Nina Bloomgarden,
Alycia Debnam-Carey, Reina Hardesty, Devon Terrell, David W.
Thompson
2024 has given us a swathe of movies in which characters find themselves
inhabiting new bodies or fresh identities: Demi Moore alternating her time
with a younger model in The Substance; a disfigured man shedding his face to reveal that of Sebastian Stan
in A Different Man; the body-swapping tourists of German sci-fi drama Skin Deep; a septuagenarian opting to return to her younger body in British
indie Forever Young. Added to the mix is writer/director Greg Jardin's feature
debut It's What's Inside, which takes the well-worn TV trope of a bunch of characters swapping
bodies and dials it up to obnoxiously irritating levels.
Jardin must be pissed that the title Bodies Bodies Bodies was already taken, as it would have fitted his own film more
aptly than It's What's Inside, a title begging for reviewers to make jokes about its lack of
substance. Like Bodies Bodies Bodies, it features a group of annoying twentysomethings gathering for a
party in a sprawling mansion, and a party game that takes a dark
turn.
The event here is a pre-wedding party for the impending marriage of
Reuben (Devon Terrell) and Sophia, promoted online as #Reuphia.
The guests are bickering couple Shelby (Brittany O'Grady) and
Cyrus (James Morosini); vapid influencer Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey); eternal frat bro Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood); arty Brooke (Reina Hardesty); and hippy Maya (Nina Bloomgarden).
They're joined, initially to their annoyance, by Forbes (David W. Thompson), who was kicked out of college for his troublemaking ways but has
since made a minor splash in the tech world.
The party kicks into life when Forbes reveals the contents of the
suitcase he's brought along: a top secret prototype of a device that
allows its users to swap bodies. After some initial hesitation, everyone
decides to give it a go, with Forbes convincing them to play a game
where they have to guess who is in each body. It's all fun and games at
first, but some players find they quite like their new shells, and a
shocking event makes things very messy, causing the partygoers to turn
on one another while stuck in each other's bodies.
It's What's Inside takes an old TV trope and attempts to work it into a standalone
movie. Said trope has resulted in some memorable episodes of sitcoms and
sci-fi shows, from a '70s episode of Gilligan's Island to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Who Are You?'. The reason this plot device works so well
in TV shows is because we have a history with the characters and we're
familiar with their specific mannerisms and how they're portrayed by the
cast. The comedy usually results from seeing a group of actors mimicking
their co-stars, and I imagine it's a lot of fun for the actors
involved.
It's What's Inside is a non-starter because we have no such history with any of its
characters, nor are the actors playing them established enough for us to
recognise when they're being mimicked by their co-stars. As such, when
the characters here swap bodies it's all pointless as they're so thinly
defined that we could barely tell them apart while they were in their
own bodies. For this idea to work as a movie it would have to feature
actors who are known for their distinctive styles. Throw Nicolas Cage,
Al Pacino, Eric Roberts, William Shatner and John Malkovich into this
scenario and it would be a riot; not so much when it's a bunch of barely
recognisable, unestablished performers.
Much of the potential of the scenario is squandered, largely by the
baffling decision to only swap characters on binary gender lines. With
the men only swapping with other men, and the same for the
women, It's What's Inside shirks away from what could have been a very timely exploration
of gender, not to mention leaving a lot of potential laughs on the
table. But even while inhabiting bodies of the same sex, the characters
never behave as you expect they would if given such an opportunity,
displaying an unlikely lack of curiosity regarding the differences in
certain areas of their bodies. The characters are multi-racial, but
aside from a joke about a white character using the N-word while in a
black body, this aspect is never explored. While the characters are
racially diverse, they're all young, athletic and able-bodied, so
there's very little variation in the bodies they jump in and out of. We
don't even get such contrasts as short and tall, or skinny and fat,
never mind disabled and able-bodied. The potential for squeamish
body-horror is similarly squandered, though we do get a couple of sex
scenes that raise awkward questions of consent that the film never
reckons with.
Jardin's background in music videos is all too obvious, with the
director employing the sort of annoying visual tics that might be fine
for three minutes but quickly test your patience when you have to endure
them for an entire feature. His restless camera, MTV editing, lazer tag
lighting scheme and the constant shouting of his cast, is
headache-inducing, and I doubt I would have made it to the end
of It's What's Inside were I not watching it for review purposes. Because his
characters are so poorly defined, Jardin has to employ the gimmick of a
red filter that shows the audience who is really inside the bodies, but
often he simply has his characters literally tell us who they are. A
final twist may cause you to wonder if the film might prove more
interesting on a repeat watch, but it's hard to imagine the average
viewer getting through one viewing, let alone going back for a second
dose.
It's What's Inside is on
Netflix from October 4th.
