Director: Halina Reijn
Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson
Screenplay: Sarah DeLappe
94 mins. Rated R for violence, bloody images, drug use, sexual references, and pervasive language.

Within the confines of young friendship, there exists the rituals of the group. I know when I get back together with the friends of my youth, I can regress to the younger Me, and we do the same foolish shit we used to when we were all together, merely a bike ride from each other’s home. While the rituals change from generation to generation and group to group, we keep returning to these situations, no matter how unhealthy they sometimes can be. Tonight’s film concerns one such group of friends and their unhealthy ritual: a little social deduction party game called Bodies Bodies Bodies.

Sophie (Amandla Stenberg, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) is seeing some old friends for the first time since getting sober, and she’s excited to introduce her new partner Bee (Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) to them while staying together at the mansion of friend David (Pete Davidson, Fast X) for a “hurricane party.” While there, they decide to play an old classic, Bodies Bodies Bodies, a faux murder game similar to Werewolf, but when a body actually turns up, old and silent feuds resurface amongst these “friends” as they attempt to discover exactly who is doing the killing.

This film exists on a very specific wavelength, where I truly enjoyed it, but I can also see it grating on some nerves and can completely understand why others, specifically critics I personally know in my circles, absolutely loathed it upon release, but I think that’s also part of the fun. The characters in the movie are quite often loathsome in the most satirical of ways, and if you can access that wavelength, I think there’s a lot to love about Bodies Bodies Bodies.

I appreciated how attentive director Halina Reijn (Instinct) is to her character’s various internalized motivations and external reactions build each character as the narrative goes on. It’s also an excellent whodunit, where my assumptions and perceptions changed as each layer peeled back (and as each body appeared). The screenplay, from Sarah DeLappe, is a spitfire and swiftly-developing story with dialogue ripped deftly from today’s 20-something generation, specifically in how quickly we choose to react to things today. We used to be a society that requested elaboration on the part of those we differ with, but with the progression of social media turning us all into Gotcha artists, constantly trying to separate instead of find similarity. Every single character in Bodies Bodies Bodies is immediately reactive rather than pausing to evaluate the information available.

That’s not to say that the film is an attack on Gen-Z. No, it’s more eschewing the popular culture of the current culture in order to also have a laugh at all cultures, specifically through the use of Greg, played by Lee Pace (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey). This one character, an older guy who’s desperately embracing the current culture in an effort to stay relevant and have purpose, makes the film’s satire multi-generational, especially in how difficult a time he’s having connecting to anyone beyond the physical.

Another element of the satire which is multi-generational is the idea that the “haves” are always playing the victim. I think some will look at the humorous dialogue of Bodies Bodies Bodies and assume that it is Gen-Z that is always the victim, but Reijn chooses to single out most of the characters as coming from families with means, particularly in how the impressive Rachel Sennott (Bottoms) delivers the dig that her friend comes from “upper middle class” in how often the “haves” pretend to be the “have-nots.”

From an acting standpoint, there are no flat-out bad performances, but certain ones rose to the top, most notably Davidson, Sennott, and Pace. Bodies Bodies Bodies also mostly succeeds from a technical perspective, including some difficult filming conditions with little to no natural light, most of the scenes lit with phone flashlights and glow sticks, and while not all of the shots work this way, a surprising number of them do.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is like seeing Agatha Christie for the year 2022, and it even works on a rewatch, especially with an ending that almost always doesn’t work but here succeeds quite well. Thanks to a stellar screenplay with biting social commentary and a director more focused on the story elements than providing jump scares, it’s the kind of movie that age quite well and still be fun for many years to come. Having seen it a few times now, I can attest to its strengths on repeat viewings and highly recommend it.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe