Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) | REVIEW

Directed by Halina Reijn — Screenplay by Sarah DeLappe — Story by Kristen Roupenian.

This summer I’ve been trying to catch up on specific releases that I may have missed from last year. One of these catch-up releases is Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, which piqued my interest last year but which I never got the chance to see. Until now, that is. Bodies Bodies Bodies follows Bee (played by Maria Bakalova), a young Eastern European woman, and her girlfriend Sophie (played by Amandla Stenberg), as they travel to a mansion owned by one of Sophie’s friends — David (played by Pete Davidson). Upon arrival, it becomes clear that Bee’s inclusion in the so-called ‘hurricane party’ that Sophie’s friend group — which, other than David, also includes Jordan (played by Chase Sui Wonders), Alice (played by Rachel Sennott), Jordan (played by Myha’la Herrold), and Greg (played by Lee Pace) — has set up has not been OK’d beforehand. After a round of introductions, they partake in alcohol and drugs before they decide to play a party game called — you guessed it — ‘bodies bodies bodies,’ which is a ‘murder in the dark’ whodunnit type game in which they have to figure out who the murderer in their midst is. Later, as the storm worsens, the power goes out, and they soon find one of them actually dead. Now it appears to be all real. They now have to figure out — as the saying goes — who’s done it.

Honestly, I had a blast with Bodies Bodies Bodies. This Halina Reijn film is essentially a slasher-comedy murder-mystery film specifically aimed at Gen Z and the so-called ‘Zillennials’ (a nebulously defined term for a microgeneration of people who were born right around the cut-off point of the Millennial generation and the start of Generation Z). Having seen it twice now, it is very clear to me that the writers and the director are having fun with this idea that once Gen Z loses access to the WiFi, they lose their minds. As a film, it puts a spotlight on things characters have left previously unsaid (things that are just waiting to rise to the surface as these people are put under pressure) and, in the process, reveals an often quite comedic vapidness in its characters and how they come to their conclusions as chaos ensues. The film, frankly, made me think a lot about Among Us, which I miss playing (this was an extremely popular game that a lot of people played during the COVID-19 lockdown, in which people would have to decide who should be voted off a spaceship, since a murderer — or impostor, as the video game called it — was in their midst) — and it really does feel like a movie of the post-COVID-19 era.

The film has a really fun cast. Maria Bakalova is obviously best known for her performance in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, but here she is much more muted, as this outsider who, notably, doesn’t ‘come from money.’ I thought Bakalova’s performance felt very authentic. Amandla Steinberg, Chase Sui Wonders, and Myha’la Herrold are all also quite good, and they nail the bickering, playfulness, or resentment that the various scenes require them to portray. The standout performance for me, however, I must say is the one delivered by Rachel Sennott, who is a star in this. She is a hoot from her first appearance to her last, and I think her line delivery is hysterical and perfectly tuned — I thought the way she used ‘upper middle class’ as a pejorative was honestly hilarious. Pete Davidson and Lee Pace’s roles are much smaller, but they do what is asked of them often in quite funny ways.

Is the film as scary as it is funny? Well, no, I wouldn’t say so. But there are moments in which it is quite tense. However, the tension in certain scenes is deflated on repeated viewings once you know what the joke of each scene is, obviously. The film has a great soundtrack that makes it feel like a really fun party night movie, and I suspect this could become a new sleepover movie modern classic. I think the idea of having the flashlights on the characters’ smartphones, for large chunks of the film, be their only source of light works really well on both a visual and a thematic level.

Halin Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies may have been made by Gen X’ers, but it is nonetheless a smartly made film that takes aim at Gen Z attitudes and for the most part pierces the bullseye — but it does so with its tongue placed squarely in its cheek. Its impeccable cast does a good job of embodying the generational relationship to social consciousness and alertness to injustices, and the cast pairs those attitudes with their particularly privileged and vapid characters to comical effect. It never feels forced. It isn’t mean. It’s just a really well-designed horror-comedy that has its characters weaponize the kind of expressions that a particular generation has become partly defined by — due to its awareness of injustices and its willingness to speak up — and pokes fun at it, in a way that I — who was born in the early-to-mid nineties — thought was really amusing.

8 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.