No matter what opinion viewers come away with after watching It’s What’s Inside, you can’t say the movie isn’t trying.
How does one even begin to describe this film? Genre labels are probably too limiting in this case. This is a story about people entering each other’s bodies. No, it’s not about sex — in fact, there’s surprisingly little sex given its allure in relation to this concept — but about a group of 20-somethings who are given the chance to swap bodies with one another. They do this by playing a game invented by an estranged friend of theirs, Forbes (David W. Thompson), who they haven’t spoken to in years after drama within their friend group at a college party resulted in him being expelled.
Trying to unpack how this event from their pasts went down will only come across as convoluted, as will attempts to explain almost the entirety of this movie’s plot. It shouldn’t be hard to see why: not only have many of these friends dated or feuded with one another at one point in time, just 30 minutes into It’s What’s Inside viewers are watching eight characters they haven’t spent long being acquainted with swap bodies with one another. What follows should be one of the most complex films of all time. And while opinions about the plot being too convoluted have resulted in the film receiving a mixed critical response, given all that it sets out to achieve, it’s nothing short of a miracle that so little of it is genuinely confusing.
Sure, there are head-scratching moments where viewers will have to concentrate harder than normal to parse which characters are interacting with one another, but on the whole it’s a surprisingly seamless watch. It also might just be one of the only movies that works better in a home setting where it can be watched (and paused) at the viewer’s discretion. Experiencing It’s What’s Inside in a cinema might honestly be too overwhelming to even begin to comprehend. Part of that is down to the constant inventiveness on display. Never keen to rest solely on his screenwriting merits (which are strong), writer and director Greg Jardin has also crafted a unique visual style with genuine personality in the film’s camerawork.
This works very well in the film’s opening sequence, depicting young couple Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini), who are struggling with intimacy and communication issues. They are constantly misfiring on these fronts, demonstrated when Shelby attempts to spice up their lacklustre love life with a blonde wig. Constantly switching back and forth between Shelby’s attempts to appear seductive while Cyrus looks increasingly detached and ill at ease, these silent moments where a look signifies everything suddenly explode in a Sorkin-esque interaction where the pair are hurling accusations at one another like rapid gunfire being spat out of a minigun. It’s the perfect introduction to the cornerstones of this film’s storytelling: excellent acting, compelling characters, inspired direction and sharply written moments.
While its use of social media posts, captions and all of Instagram’s other trappings aren’t exactly unique, Jardin uses visual and sonic cues brilliantly to convey Shelby’s feverish doomscrolling through her influencer friend Nikki’s (Alycia Debnam-Carey) Instagram account. But as the plot kicks into gear and these characters are all trying to guess who their surrounding friends are beneath the masks of other people’s bodies that they’re wearing, the constant camera movements and lighting cues feel incredibly distracting. That is, until it clicks into place that most of these cues are intentionally set up to make sense of this disorienting plot, which would be truly, impossibly maddening without them.
Not only are these artistic choices well-crafted and enjoyable to watch, they ground this narrative and allow it to flourish. In a movie where a group of friends swap bodies, there are certain expectations. You want betrayal, you want people’s identities to be upturned, you want to see that some of these characters’ seemingly perfect lives aren’t as great as they make them out to be, and you want to watch at least a bit of cheating. But most of all, it’s fascinating to imagine friendships falling apart as a result of this game, or the reveal that these bonds were never that strong in the first place. On all of these fronts It’s What’s Inside delivers.
But it also creates really intriguing, weird dynamics that poke and prod at the human condition in a way that only a premise like this could. For example, if you stare into the eyes of the woman you’re secretly in love with, and take a chance by reaching out and kissing her, does it mean anything when you know that a completely different person lurks beneath their beautiful eyes and face? If a couple decide to sleep with one another while they’re both in control of different bodies, will they still be able to look at each other the same way when things return to normal? None of these questions have a definitive answer, and it’s in these thought-provoking moments that this film brilliantly fleshes out its fascinating premise and messy character dynamics.
The acting is also nothing short of a masterclass on the part of this large cast, all of whom are tasked with playing multiple different characters. There are huge stretches in this narrative where you are watching two actors being inhabited by two entirely different characters internally, and not only was this only confusing in short bursts, the performances are compelling enough to buy these changes. It’s incredible that you can even begin to separate who these people are so early into the film once they start playing this enchanting and terrifying game, just as it’s equally impressive that It’s What’s Inside mostly delivers on its intriguing premise.
The movie is like a sci-fi mash-up of Bodies Bodies Bodies and Talk To Me, two excellent films from this decade with young characters trying to navigate who they are and what their friendships mean to them amidst nightmarish scenarios. Delightfully toxic relationships are better portrayed in the former film than in It’s What’s Inside, just as Talk to Me is more successful at paralleling possession with the escapism and horrifying aspects of drug addiction.
But this movie has its own thematic underpinnings, cleverly using its earlier references to social media to demonstrate how much someone’s self-image could be improved if they only had the out-of-body experience of literally witnessing their own bodies as if they are part of an external being. You could say that these ideas are compromised by how some of these characters are still desperate to live as other people as time goes on, but that also seems true to life.
This is one of those movies that won’t be for everyone, simply because if it’s not immediately captivating to watch it will prove difficult to keep up with the ins and outs of this constantly shifting plot. And while it generally does a remarkable job of figuring out this near impossible balancing act, the story’s final stretch falls apart due to how much it wants to be clever. When the movie should be looking to wind down towards its ending, it instead introduces new elements into the story that completely transform all that came before it. These changes aren’t so radical that they ruin the film, but I can’t exactly say I’m eager to rewatch It’s What’s Inside right away to see if it dropped any clever clues or set ups earlier in the story that map on to its late developments.
This film is incredibly intelligent, but it also ends up being too smart for its own good. Instead of feeling satisfied by its pretty fantastic reincorporation of early ideas, dialogue and interactions in its conclusion, I couldn’t help but feel as if Jardin was simply trying too hard. This promising writer and director should have had enough confidence in his vision to expand on this intriguing premise without trying to constantly outdo his own storytelling tricks. One can only hope that he learns in future projects to prioritise entertainment and immersion over cleverness, because the care Jardin displays for these characters and this plot is very inspired.
It’s What’s Inside is a blast to watch that takes its audience seriously while (almost always) not skimping out on entertainment value, and suggests very bright things ahead for its writer / director.