It's What's Inside, which screened Tuesday at the Sundance Film Festival, has a clever premise and cast that pulls it off. However, the film's style is so aggressive, that it is at odds with the story.
Eight former college classmates reunite for a wedding party. Tech genius Ford (David Thompson) brings his device, which allows people to swap bodies.
Ford suggests it as a party game to see if everyone can guess in which body their friend ended up. The game gets complicated when some friends don't want to switch back and others are careless with their borrowed bodies.
That is a clever premise and writer/director Greg Jardin fully explored the possibilities of friends manipulating each others' bodies. Unfortunately, he sabotaged it with gratuitous camera and editing tricks.
The film gets off to an uncomfortable start when characters keep talking over each other, whether reuniting in the same room or having one-on-one moments. This is accurate to how large groups function, but it's no less grating in a movie.
As annoying as the characters can be, it is necessary to give them distinct personalities so that it is clear when they are in a different body. The cast does a great job conveying the subtleties of multiple characters.
So Shelby (Brittany O'Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini) have been together since college. They both look at Nikki's (Alycia Debnam-Carey) influencer videos.
Reuben (Devon Terrell) is the groom, whose bride does not attend the party. Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood) is the loud party animal, well, louder than all the others so he stands out.
Brooke (Reina Hardesty) enjoys her marijuana and Maya (Nina Bloomgarden) is a spiritual bohemian. All eight do a meticulous job embodying each other.
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Jardin should have trusted the cast to convey this concept. Everything else undercuts their work.
The film employs split screens for no reason. If there are only two people in a scene, the frame should not split in half when the characters could just as easily share one frame.
When characters tell the backstory of how Ford fell out with them in college, they narrate a series of still photographs cut busily together. The camera pushes in or spins until everything is blurry and then keeps spinning.
Editing is also hyper, coupled with grating sounds. For example, there are three shots of a character putting a car in drive.
Music is also louder than all the dialogue. Viewers can turn their volume down when watching at home, but it will still be frustrating to hear the dialogue, which is still overlapping at that.
Perhaps the film can be refined before its ultimate release. As it premiered at Sundance, It's What's Inside is a bombastic vision where restraint was more appropriate.
Netflix will release It's What's Inside.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.