It’s What’s Inside – Spoiler-free SXSW Review

★★★★½

A pre-wedding party descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend shows up with a mysterious suitcase and proposes a game, in a mind-bending knockout sci-fi comedy that demands you go in cold.

A warning up front – director Greg Jardin has begged us to “keep the secret” of his debut film, and having seen it we understand why. You won’t find the film’s secrets unpacked here.

If the best science fiction, by exploring extreme high-concept hypotheticals, exposes our most essential human elements and asks what is it that actually makes us human, what our place is in the universe, and even the nature of reality itself. The exact premise of It’s What’s Inside is best experienced as a surprise, but it bears comparison to Primer‘s use of time travel, or Coherence‘s games with multiverse-hopping.

The film follows a group of zillennial friends who gather at a country house for a pre-wedding party, We have try-hard Reuben, whose wedding it is, Shelby and Cyrus, stuck in a toxic passive aggressive relationship since college, trust fund bro Dennis, Instagram influencer Niki, druggy Brooke and hippy Maya. Into this mix walks mystery man Forbes, the maybe-genius who got kicked out of their college and didn’t even RSVP to the invitation. Forbes has brought with him a suitcase, and when asked what’s in it he suggests that as it’s a party, games are in order. And then he opens the case.

As for what happens next, this is a great what-if scenario that’s sure to get people arguing on the way out – especially if they are couples on a movie night date.

The sound and visuals are punchy, and the country house in particular is lit boldly, in a way that brings to mind Suspiria. Rashomon-style competing flashbacks are dynamically visualised with rapidly-edited black and white photos, an inventive coup-de-cinéma that had my audience howling with appreciation. The cast of characters are all strongly played in a way that’s reminiscent of a classic murder mystery, and Jardin also claims After Hours, Klute, and The One I Love as key inspirations.

Of the entire cast, it’s probably David Thompson as Forbes that most stands out. Thompson previously had roles in Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin and Green Room (as well as Gecko in TV’s The Boys and The Scarecrow in Gotham) – here he has an incredible energy: a little goofy awkward, but sly and quite possibly dangerous. Right from the start the movie prods you to consider – is he an oddball, an outcast, misunderstood, nursing a grievance, keen to make amends? What’s going on in his head? And really the journey to understanding that is one of the key arcs of the film.

For all its high-concept madness, It’s What’s Inside is ultimately a film about relationships, everyday delusions, and human emotions, and if it didn’t succeed on that level it would just be a fun concept. Fortunately it’s smart, funny, insightful and rather savage. If you wished Primer or Coherence were crossed with the run-around-the-house antics of Clue to produce a dark relationship comedy, then this is the movie for you. I loved it.

Recommended!

It’s What’s Inside played SXSW and is coming soon to Netflix, because they paid $17 million for it.