The Reel Review
A pre-wedding celebration takes an ominous turn when an estranged college friend, now a tech guru, shows up with a machine that allows friends to switch bodies with one another, inadvertently exposing long-kept secrets and hidden desires. David Thompson, Brittany O’Grady (The White Lotus) and Alysha Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead) star in this dark comedy/sci-fi-thriller.
A clever screenplay, an engaging, well-acted cast of relative unknowns and some fun plot twists keep the action moving in writer/director Greg Jardin’s intentionally disorienting feature film debut where nothing – and no one – is what they seem. When tragedy strikes after the second round of body swaps, friends start panicking, musical chairs style, over who’s going back into whose body. Clever camerawork helps illustrate who is actually who.
At its core, It’s What’s Inside is an exploration of self-identity as well as a metaphor about the perils of losing that self-identity when experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) in comparing one’s life to others and chasing likes via phony social media façades. The twisty, vengeful ending is fun and thought-provoking. You almost certainly won’t see it coming.
REEL FACTS
• Netflix snapped up It’s What’s Inside for $17 million after it got positive reviews at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
• Throughout the movie there’s background music that is variations on the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.
• It’s What’s Inside was filmed in Portland, Oregon.
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