Starring Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood, Nina Bloomgarden, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Reina Hardesty, Devon Terrell, David W. Thompson and Madison Davenport

Written and directed by Greg Jardin

Netflix

Shelby and Cyrus are getting married and before the festivities, their friend Reuben throws them a party at his mother’s magnificently over the top house. But as the friend group gathers, they realize they have a surprise guest: Forbes, who no one has seen for years, and who wants to play a game…

Greg Jardin’s feature length debut is visually astonishing from very nearly the first scene. He balances a willingness to focus in on intimate character moments with some magnificently over the top musical choices and flashes of visual brilliance that make the deeply complex second and third acts easier to follow. It’s still demanding, but without the choices Jardin makes, especially with colour, it would be incomprehensible.

That brings us to the cast, who have the most difficult job in the movie and are simultaneously the strongest and weakest link. The McGuffin, and this is barely a spoiler, is that Forbes’ machine allows people to switch bodies. As the game begins, every cast member becomes every other cast member only not all of them are being entirely honest about it…

It’s a brilliant concept, and one that throws the ’20s Big Chill-like cast into a blender. Relationships shift, fantasies are explored and long-standing grudges turn into burning feuds. Everyone pulls triple duty and everyone impresses, but James Morosini as increasingly poisonous Cyrus and Fear the Walking Dead alumni Alycia Debnam-Carey are particular standouts. Coupled with Jardin’s inventive use of colours and cutting between multiple takes, it drags them and you through a hell of feral ids.

This is all intensely impressive stuff but it’s also rarely if ever remotely sympathetic. The characters are all broad to the caricature and most of them are people you’d cross the street to avoid and still hear them shouting about how bad their lives are. It’s a conscious choice, both to give the cast things to hang onto and also to get the plot rolling. It works too, but the price that’s paid for that is that you’re impressed, but rarely invested. You don’t care if these people live or die, and honestly, for a lot of them, the latter option is preferable.

Verdict: It’s What’s Inside is incredibly clever, often very funny and gleefully dark. You’ll be impressed for sure but whether you’ll care or not really does depend on what’s inside. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart