Stream It Or Skip It: ‘It’s What’s Inside’ on Netflix, a Loony, Highly Entertaining Millennial Body-Swap Comedy

Headtrips rarely get more literal than It’s What’s Inside, a body-swap thriller-com that was a Sundance sensation, to the tune of landing a $17 million payday via Netflix’s deep pockets. The deal makes sense – the streamer has a reputation for getting a lot of eyeballs on the work of auteurs and/or new directors, boosting viewership and careers at the same time (the likes of Todd Haynes and Jeremy Saulnier surely never enjoyed such big audiences when they weren’t making Netflix exclusives). But whether It’s What’s Inside’s amusingly convoluted narrative makes complete sense is the question we’re going to address today.

IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini) seem to be piloting a dead shark here. They’ve been together since college, nine years. There’s no ring and no sex life and they may be wondering if there’s no hope. She’s trying to create a spark in the bedroom and he’s – well, he’s firing up porn and shoving his hand down his pants. They at least have one mutual interest: Old college friend Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), whose hashtag-perfect-life Instagram feed Shelby watches with envy, and who Cyrus crushed on way back when (and may still), not that they share these thoughts with each other. It’s surely not a coincidence that Shelby dons a Nikki-esque wig and affects a Nikki-esque voice in an attempt to seduce Cyrus, is it? What goes unspoken here is so very loud.

Things aren’t gonna be any easier when Shelby and Cyrus reunite with their old college crew for a wedding that also functions as a reunion. Reuben (Devon Terrell) is the one getting married. Nikki will be there. So will neo-hippie Maya (Nina Bloomgarden) and grounded tough-girl type Brooke (Reina Hardesty). They’ll all stay at the massive-ass mansion that bro-dude Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood) inherited from his late mother. There was an eighth, and nobody’s sure if he’ll show, since a series of unfortunate incidents got him expelled and he vanished into the tech sector, never to be seen again. 

But of course he shows, because the movie needs its Agent of Chaos. Forbes (David W. Thompson) taps on the window, wearing a grin and carrying a green suitcase. He was always the guy who spearheaded game night, and boy does he have a doozy this time, because inside that suitcase is the movie’s high concept: A machine with analog dials and switches and cable jacks – and a series of electrodes on wires that one sticks to one’s temples so one may brain-swap with others. It’ll be an eight-way switcheroo, and the game involves guessing whose mind is in whose body. I’m sure this is a great idea and just some harmless fun, and nothing at all will go wrong. There’s absolutely no hilariously unpleasant tension to be found here. Might as well turn the movie off and go do something else!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Bodies Bodies Bodies – one of my favorite films of 2022 – is an obvious comparison, with bits of Game Night, Talk to Me and newer whodunnit mysteries like Knives Out thrown in.

Performance Worth Watching: Plenty of candidates for this honor, since the brain-switching allows actors to play multiple characters with just their usual old boring bodies. O’Grady is our de-facto protagonist, since her character arc is more pronounced; meanwhile, Thompson’s mischievous glint is the wild spark this movie needs. 

Memorable Dialogue: “If I end up in Reuben’s body, does it mean it’s OK if I use the N-word?”

Sex and Skin: One brief not-very-graphic sex scene.

Our Take: Writer/director Greg Jardin’s full-gonzo overdirection is part of It’s What’s Inside’s hyperkinetic charm. It’s a gimmicky visual style that works quite well, with its satirically artsy set design, social media affectations, unreliable flashbacks and split screens creating an aesthetic that’s in line with Millennials’ fractured and distracted point-of-view. (It’ll absolutely date me when I interpret one nine-way split screen as an obvious Brady Bunch reference; the target audience may see That ’70s Show in the way the camera spins from character to character.) His use of color is especially ingenious, and vital to our understanding of crucial plot details once the inevitable entanglements start obfuscating certain truths of certain situations (he said, carefully avoiding spoiler landmines), in a fine balance of art and pragmatism.

Which isn’t to say the concept is air-tight at all times. A few obvious questions go unaddressed – you can’t help but wonder how the switching affects one’s genetic material, and this idea seems ripe for a sequel where characters explore what it’s like to jump into a body of a different gender – although Jardin apparently tries to maintain focus within the core conceit, and playfully explore ideas about identity and perception, especially in an age when people get paid to share phony lives on social media to promote personal and corporate brands. The twists Jardin concocts are true existential brain-bogglers, and genuinely funny, although the satire could be honed to a finer, more effective point. But Jardin’s collection of narcissists, put-upons and devious manipulators gives us a wild and near-poignant sense of what it would be like to walk in another person’s shoes for a while. The director takes a big swing at a big idea, and you can’t help but admire it. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the film’s occasional thematic mushiness, it’s what’s inside that counts – Jardin’s intention is to provoke and entertain, and he absolutely succeeds.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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