It’s What’s Inside movie review (2024)

Precarious game nights have become common fodder for horror movie fun, with ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ and ‘Talk To Me’ being two of the genre’s biggest hits of this decade so far. Writer-director Greg Jardin delves into this format for his feature debut ‘It’s What’s Inside’, now on Netflix.

Cyrus (James Morosini) and Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) are having relationship problems. They’ve been together for almost a decade, and without a ring and without sex, their daily interactions are fraught and unfulfilling. To make matters worse, with their college friend Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) wedding just days away, they’re heading to his late mother’s estate, where they’ll be reunited with their old group of friends for a pre-wedding party.

They meet the other members of their college clique: uptight stoner Brooke (Reina Hardesty), party boy Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), new Buddhist spiritual hippie Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), and influencer Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey). , who is the object of Cyrus’ latent desire and Shelby’s deep-seated jealousy. As the group wonders if their other friend Forbes (David Thompson), with whom they have a testy relationship due to their influence on his expulsion from college, will show up, he appears at the back window, with a mysterious suitcase in hand .

The suitcase works in the field of advanced technology and contains a machine that he wants to use for a game. By connecting electrodes to the temples of everyone in the room, with the push of a button, everyone changes their body. The game is to find out who owns whose body. It is a twisted version of Mafia (also known as Werewolf) that abuses the crew to achieve their desires, envy and revenge.

Narratively speaking, it’s pretty hard not to notice the obvious similarities to the aforementioned ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’. From the lavish estate to the slightly estranged friend and the remixed game Mafia, it’s almost too close for comfort. Even the satire on friend groups is similar, but where the former pokes fun at Gen-Z, “It’s What’s Inside” targets an older, more millennial audience with its discourse on long-term relationships and personal fulfillment.

“It’s What’s Inside” is a comedy with a hint of horror elements. As bodies alternate and the characters explore what they can do anonymously or find renewed faith in the objects of their envy, Jardin only scratches the surface of his format’s gruesome and existential potential. Since the film’s concept allowed for so much fun, the film could have armed itself with fast and loose narrative weapons to raise the stakes and fun to a bloody, lustful high. Instead, “It’s What’s Inside” opts for safety.

What does work is Jardin’s humorous pen. The film’s cast of characters are fun to laugh at (and with), as the situational comedy of their mixed bag of personalities leaves plenty of room for clashes. Even though the characters fit into archetypal roles, they are stereotypes that we can use to identify and remember people in our own lives. The film does an excellent job of capturing the uneasy feeling of reuniting a former group of friends. All the joy of memory returns, but with it comes the memory of disagreements and plasters on wounds that no longer stick to the skin. When college is over and life moves on, the people we separate from the context and identity of school can be so diverse that it’s difficult to find the common thread that once existed. What’s most powerful are the whispered emotions of the late teens and early twenties versions of ourselves rising to a roar in the presence of those who knew us, and ‘It’s What’s Inside’ places this at the forefront of the stories.

Jardin employs a punchy style in his filmmaking, using split screens and vibrant neon colors as identifiers. These elements, along with a witty flashback sequence in the form of constantly changing photographs, contribute to the nostalgia that keeps the film’s existential implications in orbit, while perfectly capturing what it feels like to be in a drunken gossip session about times gone by. to get along.

With different personalities shifting into the same bodies, there’s a ripe opportunity for unique, diverse performances from the actors as they swap characters. Thompson, in playing his true character, Forbes, is strikingly and cartoonishly odd in behavior, but in a way that feels self-aware. Due to his early introduction in the film, he is the one who sets the tone, just as his character sets the events of the film in motion.

Typically, the ensemble cast prioritizes maintaining the levity of Jardin’s script, but Morosini and Debnam-Carey are the standouts. Debnam-Carey goes from a hollow, comic vanity to a deeply emotional and uncertain place of nuance, with a scene in the final third that blinds you with emotion in what has largely been a comedic narrative ride. Morosini’s ambivalence turned unpleasant also provides a great deal of humor in the final act, and he is the one who keeps the energy high as the story takes a slower turn towards the end.

Unfortunately, the film’s ending feels displaced in terms of tone and emotional credibility, and doesn’t come across as entirely earned, and the pacing feels like a dead end compared to what Jardin had previously established. “It’s What’s Inside” is a fun foray into the dynamics of a friend group and the interiorities of its members, even as it purges its potential.

Now on Netflix.