‘Its What’s Inside’ directed by Greg Jardin is a movie that took so many different genres and connected them into one film, horror, science fiction, thriller, comedy, mystery, and suspense. Often when a movie takes on so many different genres they get lost along the way while trying to juggle between them. However, Greg Jardin took on the challenge and made a movie that constantly leaves you guessing even after the credits.
During a pre-wedding reunion, a group of old college friends play a game that changes their sense of self and reality, when their minds and bodies are switched. They start to ask the question ‘who’s who?’ until everything changes and everyone is faced with life changing consequences.
The film itself takes a very artistic approach to cinematography. The entire movie had a similar vibe to an episode of ‘Black Mirror’ by making the watcher question reality, while still remaining very visually pleasing. The cinematography and plot were similar to ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ directed by Halina Reijn, The color palette Incorporated a lot of blues and purples, the story was set in a huge old style mansion, the game, and the friend groups dynamic and personalities are all things these two movies have in common. However, Jardin took his own creative approach to this movie through the physiological aspects.
The creepiest things to me about this movie were how everything about the game just felt off, the suspense leading up to the game, and how strange the game itself was to watch. When everyone switches bodies the vibe shifts. The characters start to get greedy when they realize there are little to no consequences when you don’t know who is who. After they realize this the game becomes more of a way for them to act on the tensions that they have had for years.
The actors did an amazing job. Most of them had to play three roles and they seemed to do it effortlessly and made the director’s vision come to life. The actors adopted little things from each character like the facial expressions and tone of voice to really sell how they switched bodies. I think that the acting was the most impressive part of this film by far, most of the cast were smaller actors who haven’t had any big roles yet however they made a lasting impression.
This film has immense potential however, the ending brought it to a dead stop. I didn’t appreciate how Jardin changed the story at the very end, it seemed rushed as if it was done to add something crazy to the film. However Jardin did such an amazing job establishing the story and background of the characters at the beginning of the film that the ending ruined it for me and the ending fell flat. I think that ‘It’s What’s Inside’ could have been a five star movie but it became a typical Netflix film, with little to no originality, therefore I give “It’s What’s Inside” three out of five stars.
