Director(s)	Halina Reijn
Principal Cast	Amandla Stenberg as Sophie Maria Bakalova as Bee Myha’la Herrold as Jordan Chase Sui Wonders as Emma Rachel Sennott as Alice
Release Date	2022
Language(s)	English
Running Time	94 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The soundscape is littered with the sounds of birds and bees, animalistic noises and the symbols of sexual euphemism come to life, as the camera focuses on a fitting image of a loving, lustful engagement – a gratuitous make-out session – whose noises enter into the cacophony. The frame’s first focus is the encounter, the experience and not the experiencers – an intentional choice that affirms a “living in the moment.”

Then, the camera pulls back to reveal the subjects of this amorous encounter, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), who are caught in the throes of passion, their desire for their respective partner’s body overwhelming any other drive – humans rendered as their basest selves.

From this vantage point, the greenery surrounding the couple in the backdrop shot out-of-focus to render it into a hue of colors, an impressionistic embrace and framing by nature, calls back to the idyllic Eden, this time populated by two Eves.

This paradise continues for a while until Sophie declares her love to Bee, the latter of which smiles back without giving a verbal response.

The enunciation is immediately interrupted by the harsh musical tunings of Slayyyter ‘s “Daddy AF” and we cut to the two characters, previously protected by the lush greens, now encased in a metallic husk, a car, with phones in their hands as opposed to on one another – technological transmutation, a counterpoint to the openings positioning of the human as pure animality freed from anthropocentric constraints.

With the shift to this “hi-tech” humanity, we see new concerns bleed into the environment, replacing the love from before with a sense of worry. Bee looks at her phone with concern, scrolling through it with a sense of dread. Sophie attempts to assuage her, claiming that her friends’ digital personas, profiles Bee is looking over are not as “nihilistic” as portrayed and are indicative of what said friends want others “to think” of them.

Thus, the phone is rendered as a barrier to unfettered love, a portal to false images by which persons can look at others in an artificial, distanced manner.

The camera cuts from the inside of the vehicle to wide shots of the vehicle traversing lush, green mountains before a nice aerial shot reveals a wide-spanning mansion, the location of the get-together that Sophie is taking Bee to, a party with the aforementioned friends that Bee feels the need to research before meeting in an attempt to not make a fool of herself. We’re a far ways from the idyllic Eden where love can find and cultivate itself without regards for the thoughts of outside observers.

The couple gets out and heads to the luxurious abode but Bee hesitates and claims she has to retrieve something from the vehicle. Sophie rushes over, tells her not to dally for too long, and kisses her partner once again. But this attempt to channel the Edenic opening fails. There’s a space here made all the more poignant by the greens around them which are now fully in focus: discreteness generates distance.

Bee goes back to the car and immediately checks her face in the rear-view mirror, touching up her image to ensure that her ensuing meeting with the persons she’s spent time researching will come to joyous fruition. The reflective surface serves as an analog to the phone from earlier, an interface by which the ego can render itself into its most pleasing form.

Satisfied by her appearance, she finally gets out and begins to walk into the abode. The shot frames her in the background with the car’s dashboard and mirror in the foreground. We watch her move towards the house and cut right as she disappears behind the mirror she’s just spent time consulting with: she’s entered the mirror world, the realm of appearances.

Meanwhile, the mansion’s inhabitants peacefully float around in a pool, a man-made approximation of nature, of Eden, that can’t recreate the same idyllic peace but serves as a temporary reprieve, a metaphorical womb of sorts. This moment is interrupted by the presence of Sophie; she appears at the edge of the pool, her image distorted and shifting, and disrupts the reflection of those below. Confrontation looms at the boundary of the water qua mirror, a counterpoint of sorts to Bee’s earlier moment by herself.

The crew comes up and engages with Sophie. Alice (Rachel Sennot) eagerly greets her friend while the rest of the group slowly acclimates to the presence, treating their supposed comrade more like an intrusion, questioning her presence at their get-together. As all the characters pop out, Greg (Lee Pace) pops out of the water and reveals that the paradisal picture was merely a competition ground; the group had been testing the limits of their breathing capacities and he’s won the competition. The game of compare and contrast has already started.

While this group converses, Bee enters the house, a moment which showcases the opulence of the manor in a wonderful tracking shot that starts on the ceiling and goes to Bee’s face as she gazes around entranced. A cut shows her framed by the doors of the house, a new entrant to the world of the bourgeoise who finds herself held in its purview. She enters the backyard pool environment and is initially cast alone, her outsider status re-affirmed.

Sophie quickly runs to her partner’s side, wraps her arms around her, and begins to introduce her to the rest of the crowd, stopping on Greg who is revealed to be Alice’s most recent beau, another new entrant to this social scene – seemingly obvious given his age gap compared to the rest of the group. The framing switches from Bee alone to Bee with Sophie to the couple now cast to one side of the frame against the already established group – two worlds primed to collide.

Greg’s immediate reaction to learning that this is THE Sophie immediately informs us of an undercurrent pervading this social scene, one that has been building since her cohorts first became aware of her appearance. There’s a palpable tension building as we wait to learn what Sophie’s done. Just like Bee, we’re outsiders to this group’s dynamic and must learn how to swim in its ebb and flow.

Quickly, thinly veiled barbs start materializing into larger concerns. The group calls out Sophie for being unresponsive in the group chat. She hasn’t been part of the group’s festivities in some time and her presence is a genuine surprise to everyone else. What exactly does she want?

Then, Alice goes to get champagne to celebrate the festivities. David (Pete Davidson), the party’s host, chastises her for taking his “dad’s shit”, revealing this abode and everything within as part of the generational wealth he’s been born into, but he ultimately doesn’t push the matter when she exclaims the presence of their seemingly unavailable friend warrants a toast. In perfect synergy with his partner, Greg then comes out into the fray with an antique sword and slices the bottle open in a wonderful show, a demonstration which upsets David even more than the retrieval of the bottle. He not only repeats his warning to not touch his father’s property but goes so far as to act and grab the weapon away from the only other male presence – class and gender become inextricably tied as masculinity becomes coded, albeit jokingly, as a threat.

The subtle interactions of the group reveal their individual relationships to one another and to wealth itself which help inform both us and Bee of the underlying dynamics at work, an interplay which has become more complex as an unseen member, Max (Conner O’Malley) is disclosed to be missing due to alluded antagonisms. Additionally, the group realizes that they too are unfamiliar with the new Sophie who surprises everyone with her announcement of sobriety. Suddenly, the reason for the toast itself, a gesture meant to include Sophie within the festivities with aplomb, is undermined and leaves the group searching for something new to celebrate.

In a sick joke, as if we needed any more proof of the group’s opulence, they choose to then dedicate their drinks to the impending hurricane; a devastating event for commoners becomes a time for celebration for those who are capable of sheltering away from such tragedy. But nature cares not for wealth, and the imposing presence of the hurricane makes good on its promise and forces the group to go inside even as David takes the time, with sword in hand, to challenge the natural phenomena before giving up and throwing the sword on the floor thereby confirming that his concerns over its damages at the hands of Greg were based in pride and antagonism: property is only valuable as an extension of one’s image – a succinct take on the purpose of class.

Back in the house, our initial couple attempts to engage in another make-out session, this time framed against the backdrop of the mansion, which is quickly interrupted by the party’s host who takes Sophie aside to learn for the latter’s reason for coming to the event. Class dictates new conventions and the show of nature, initially cast as serene at the film’s start, becomes interrupted and commented on by observers. Privacy no longer exists.

This is confirmed when Bee slowly explores the house, entranced by the images of family and grandeur all around her. She’s clearly alienated by this environment but is unable to even take the entirety of the locale in before Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) intercedes, informs Bee of Sophie’s wealth which is comparatively greater to even David’s, and issues a warning to the newest newcomer: “Just be careful, okay? With Sophie. Just… Be Careful.” As she delivers this cautionary comment, the camera slowly pivots and uses the framing of the wall to divide these two parties into separate partitions – new groupings are being formed.

Suddenly, the mysteries of Sophie are turned against Bee as she’s now thrown into the currents of a group-dynamic which she knows nothing about and is forced to accept that she may not know her partner as well as she previously thought. The previous exchanges amongst the group code this interaction in multiple fashions and transform it into a labyrinth to be navigated with caution.

Is this this an analog to David and Greg’s previous confrontation at the pool, a female antagonism opposed to male, wherein Jordan takes on David’s role, Sophie takes on Greg’s role, and Bee, the seemingly poorest of the bunch, comes to be a stand-in for the “sword”, a symbol of power, in this case companionship, which must be controlled as an extension of one’s image?

Or is this an example of class solidarity, an extension of Jordan’s concern with not dropping the incredibly expensive alcohol, a thought which seemingly crossed none of the other party members’ minds, wherein she is looking out for Bee as someone who is also alienated by the displays of affluence? It would certainly make sense of her earlier, unprompted provocation about the stature of Sophie’s wealth.

We’re left to ponder the intent as Jordan happily hops down the hallway, out of sight, leaving only her eerie words behind.

As the interactions continue to proliferate, the film’s symbol par excellence, the cell-phone, continues to gain functions and becomes cemented as a pivotal tool in each character’s toolbox. It serves as mirror which can allow one to modify their appearance. It can allow for communication with parties not present within the immediate space, allowing for intimate connection. It can combine these functions and be used as a tool for social capital, capturing interactions meant for large-scale consumption vis-à-vis applications like Tik Tok. Director Halina Reijn imbues the object with nuance, an interface wherein all aspects of identity play around in relation to different socialized systems of power, but constantly demonstrates the way this nuance is discarded in favor of projects funded by the ego, affirmations of selfishness at the cost of everything else, a cost which will the film will explore with relish as its run-time continues.

Eventually, the group, including Bee, fall fully under the influence of their drugs and/or drinks of choice and are fully able to interact with one another, the substances operating as catalysts for interaction that previously was too shy to occur organically. It’s a ritual meant to summon the affects of Eden, nature at peace with itself, into a space that’s anything, the abode of capital and egotistical antagonisms that take priority over everything else.

Azelia Bank’s iconic “212” starts to play as the group begins to dance with aplomb while losing themselves in its frenetic energy, but as evidenced by the opening’s musical break, we know this is set to fail. The frenetic hand-held montage can’t sustain the same passion evinced by the opening as the constant-cutting showcases the power of the gaze and its violent powers.

Intimate moments of potential connection are ripped apart as persons are repeatedly transformed into outsiders who project their own fears and concerns onto these new dalliances, transforming would-be encounters into battlegrounds where the excluded participants make themselves known and vie for total control of the situation.

Jordan stares with a fervor as Sophie and Bee dance, her warning looming in the distant background.

Alice immediately pushes Sophie aside when the latter dances with the only other outsider in the group, Greg – a move that immediately stops the establishment of solidarity.

Sophie is prodded by David to look at Bee and Jordan dancing and is clearly perturbed by this interaction. Her reaction marks the beginning of the end and she calls the affairs to a stand-still and proposes that the group play a game, the titular “Bodies Bodies Bodies.”

The game, a take on popular games like “Mafia” or “Werewolf”, designates one player as a killer and tasks the other players with figuring out their identity before the players are fully eliminated. The players must navigate the house in the dark with a light and the next session of the game can only start when someone finds a deceased member and calls out the game’s title: “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” Thus, the implicit arena of the dance-floor becomes explicit within a game that actively forces the players to ascertain one another’s true intentions and come to meaningful conclusions as violence looms around every corner.

However, this variant of the game starts off with a ritualized ceremony, a credo of sorts, that sees each player take a shot and then slap the player next to them. The symbolic violence and rush of the game is not enough for these people and they need to ramp up the stakes even more to feel something in their insulated, privileged lives.

The ritual goes along well until Bee, the female outsider, refuses to hit David as hard as she’s expected to, obviously taking the trappings of the game as a limiting factor to the violence, choosing to play within the realm of symbols instead of letting such desires sublimate into reality. But David takes her refusal as a window to showcase what should actually be done – the host enforcing the laws of the land – and viciously punches Greg, the male outsider, the party who already emasculated David unknowingly outside with the display of the sword, giving the audience a taste of what’s to come.

Alice quickly calms Greg down and the game begins. The lights are turned out and the players are told to hide amongst the house. Of course, Bee armed with her cell-phone, uses it to navigate the environment, an abode which already alienates her with its affluence, and determines her allegiances, choosing to try and form a companionship with Alice, who runs away from her, and avoid Jordan, who narrowly misses Bee as she hides.

Suddenly, the call is made. The group convenes. The lights turn on.

And as expected, the resulting conversation immediately devolves into personal slights, indictments based on knowledge that one would never know outside of the game, so called “meta-gaming” moments that reveal the antagonisms within the group that had been swirling up for so long up to this moment. We see the formation of in-groups and the way they determine outsiders and see the ruptures becoming to form, conflicts which break out into reality when the next round starts and a body is found again, this time genuinely dead and un-moving. Now, the game will truly begin as it becomes realized in the flesh.

As this violent investigation continues, conflicts which we had only seen parts of rear their ugly heads. Alliances are tested and at each critical juncture new information is revealed which makes ascertaining the assassin increasingly difficult. No one can be trusted and the character’s, stuck using their own knowledge of one another, information which has been coded by all parties to fit their own self-interests, find themselves trapped in a nightmarish environment where anything and everything threatens to take them out.

With the lights fully out due to the storm, this variant of the game, one enforced by the rules of nature proper, never has a moment of proper deliberation with every encounter taking place in absolute darkness, the state of ambiguity. The power saps the utility of the phones, turning them into pure symbols meant to light the way – a perfect tying of form to content.

The set-up lets Reijn ratchet up tension, shooting the majority of the rest of the film in a handheld manner that reinforces the horror tropes one would associate with such a milieu and leads into moments of genuine tension.

However, as the storm rages on, the tight, intricate brushstrokes the film paints itself with, namely the minute point and counter-points related to class and gender, wash away under the pressures of the narrative and become far less focused and poignant, drowning under the pressure.

Ideas on class and gender become far more overarching than they need be and the manner by which the film demonstrates the logic of alienation is cast aside.

The script’s wonderful Gen-Z slang, awash in the tropes and stylings of online vernacular, previously used to reinforce the shallow manners by which the characters’ code themselves as perpetual victims and as better than one another, eventually becomes superficial in end of itself, servicing the film with nothing more than punch-lines that elicit laughs but do very little in taking the aforementioned sub textual machinations to the next level, a move that would evaluate this horror-skinned murder mystery into the realm of a full-blooded classic.

While the broad splatters the film ultimately uses to finish populating its canvas tie together the plotlines in a formally competent and satisfying manner, neatly calling back to some of the larger overtures established at the film’s start, the ultimate reveal, the film’s punch-line so to speak, may alienate viewers looking for something grander underneath the veneer of it all. And while that particular message and related revelation may be the film’s biggest point, a perfect encapsulation of sorts of its characters and the manner by which it treats them, it’s a shame that it seemingly becomes the only fully developed statement delivered when so much groundwork had been laid down to present a more multi-faceted thesis.

Using the film’s pressing scenario as a metaphor, there’s a hurricane waiting to be unleashed on the viewer, but the film settles for a torrent of rain instead, foregoing the other elements that would augment such a phenomenon and generate a storm that would truly stand-out.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Much like the party and game at the heart of it’s story, the film is filled with an abundance of jokes, kinetic scenes, and moments of grandeur that ultimately delivers goods that should satisfy those looking for a fun horror-skinned murder mystery and satire on the parlance of identity politics, but the vacuous nature of this delivery may disappoint those looking for something a bit more profound.
Rating	8.8/10
Grade	B+

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