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Spoilers below.
If you could swap bodies with someone, would you? Should you? The newest Netflix film It’s What’s Inside, which was acquired out of Sundance earlier this year, ruminates on these questions via its body-swap thriller conceit. What starts as a weekend of reconnecting with college friends at a friend’s house winds up lethal when two friends end up dead. As details about everyone’s motives come to light, so do their true colors, and it’s a night that they’ll never recover from.
The setup is simple: it’s the night before Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) wedding, and he’s invited his old pals up to his palatial estate for one last hurrah, just like they promised him years prior. The gang includes: unhappy couple Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini), who are struggling with Shelby’s low self-esteem and Cyrus’s porn addiction; Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), their pretty blonde friend who has become an influencer, sparking Shelby’s jealousy and Cyrus’s lust; Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), the group’s wild-haired hippie for whom Reuben still has a flame; Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), the hard-partying bro; and Brooke (Reina Hardesty), an edgy girl that honestly doesn’t get enough screen time to discern a personality.
As they’re settling in, partying and reminiscing, another friend, Forbes (David Thompson), shows up. Almost no one has stayed in touch with him after his anger issues got him kicked out of school, likely brought on by Dennis hooking up with his younger sister Beatrice. Forbes is awkward but he comes bearing a party favor: a mysterious suitcase carrying a machine that allows them all to swap bodies.
This is where things get interesting—and honestly quite confusing. The first round of swaps are mostly fun and games, as people discover what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes and even act on some long-held impulses. Cyrus, in Reuben’s body, makes a move on Nikki’s physical body with Maya inside, finally making good on his fantasy to bed the influencer. But things get weird during the second round (because of course, everyone decided they wanted to play the game again). This time, Reuben, whose consciousness is inside of Dennis’s body, seizes his chance to hook up with Maya one last time. Brooke is inside of Maya, but she’s down for the hookup anyway. The two have sex on the balcony, so rough that the wood breaks underneath them and they both fall to their death. (If keeping track of the swaps was hard for you, like it was for me, Netflix has this handy guide to who’s who through each round.)
Alycia Debnam Carey as Nikki, David Thompson as Forbes, and Brittany O’Grady as Shelby.
This is a wrinkle no one planned for: If somebody’s body is dead, can the person who was inhabiting them return to their true body? And does everyone actually want to return to their own bodies? It turns out that they don’t. At least, Shelby doesn’t. She’s in Nikki’s body and concocts a plan to take over her life, while Cyrus takes over Reuben’s, and they can live happily ever after together. It’s deranged but seems like it might just work until Nikki (currently in Brooke’s body) tries to poison herself, taking advantage of a severe peanut allergy. Nikki would rather have her body die than have it hijacked.
Just as the police arrive, the group finally gets their act together to try swapping back into their bodies. Everyone gets hooked up to the machine, buttons are pressed, levers are maneuvered, and…all we see is the exasperated look on the officer’s face. The film then cuts to a coda taking place the next day, following an as-yet unseen woman through a serious case of road rage before she arrives at Reuben’s mansion.
James Morosini as Cyrus and Brittany O’Grady as Shelby.
That woman is none other than Beatrice (Madison Davenport), Forbes’s sister. It’s What’s Inside doesn’t try to answer the question behind the technology, only what happens if it falls into the wrong hands. Writer/director Greg Jardin takes a lazy approach in his response, pinning the entire nightmare on Beatrice’s mental imbalance. In the coda we learn that she’s still holding a grudge against Dennis all these years later as she blames him for her institutionalization. But even crazier? Beatrice isn’t just appearing on the scene now; she’s been with the group all along. Yes, you read that correctly. Forbes was in attendance in body only; Beatrice had taken over his physical form to enact her revenge on Dennis. Now, not only is Dennis’s body dead, but Beatrice also bankrupted him by transferring his entire balance into an offshore account.
The film doesn’t make it entirely clear if the group’s last-ditch effort to return to their original bodies is fruitful or not, aside from Beatrice riding off into the sunset in Nikki’s body with the machine in tow. Instead, it ends with the bodies of the same couple we began with: Cyrus and Shelby. After being framed for Dennis and Maya’s deaths via Dennis in Cyrus’s body, Cyrus is in jail. It’s implied that both of them are in their own bodies when Shelby visits him there, though her presence through the thick glass is more menacing than comforting. Cyrus maintains his innocence and his love for Shelby, but she’s not buying it after finding out about what he did while in Reuben’s body during the first round of swaps. Tired of his lies, and with the realization that he preferred her while in Nikki’s body, she’s happy to leave him to rot. If there is a winner to be crowned in It’s What’s Inside, Shelby is probably the only one who could claim the title.
Radhika Menon is a freelance entertainment writer, with a focus on TV and film. Her writing can be found on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more.