Bodies Bodies Bodies (Halina Reijn, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

Since much of the discussion around Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies necessarily circles around the idiosyncrasies and absurdities of 20-something life in the 2020s, let me start by describing how lucky I was to watch this supplemented by my local theater’s most advanced immersive technology: I was surrounded by people in their twenties, and they were fucking irritating as all hell. The couple behind me to my left waited to start talking until the pre-trailers commercials ended, but luckily they made up for it by never stopping again; the couple to my right twice dropped one of their phones and used the flashlight on the other to search for it; and when I finally moved a few rows down to get away from those people, the cute gay couple I sat next to was extremely well behaved, but the two girls behind them either gave up on the movie two-thirds of the way through and started audibly making out or were chewing large wads of taffy with their mouths open (I didn’t turn around to find out).

Somehow I still managed to come away from this experience feeling like this was a solid, fun slasher, amusing enough in its critique of kids these days that it doesn’t come off as strident or winking, save for a handful of lines of dialogue that test one’s patience. If it never surpasses the benchmark of a sturdy, ultimately lightweight thriller, it’s a fault of ambition, not execution; everyone involved does their work effectively and efficiently, and while this may not be a new genre classic, it’s a fine calling card for Reijn, screenwriter Sarah DeLappe, and the cast, particularly Amandla Sternberg and Myha’la Herrold.

More than the much-discussed social commentary, it’s the script’s tight structure that works in the film’s favor, steadily keeping the proceedings moving forward while giving the audience just enough occasional breathing room to update their speculation about what’s going on here and why. Reijn’s lean direction doesn’t call attention to itself with unnecessary flashiness or stylization, serving her script and the actors with a welcome graciousness. 

It’s easy to imagine an extremely irritating version of this film, and it’s a credit to the filmmakers that they produced something perfectly watchable instead.

[therewillbeblus]

Since much of the discussion around Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies necessarily circles around the idiosyncrasies and absurdities of 20-something life in the 2020s, let me start by describing how lucky I was to watch this supplemented by my local theater’s most advanced immersive technology: I was surrounded by people in their twenties, and they were fucking irritating as all hell. The couple behind me to my left waited to start talking until the pre-trailers commercials ended, but luckily they made up for it by never stopping again; the couple to my right twice dropped one of their phones and used the flashlight on the other to search for it; and when I finally moved a few rows down to get away from those people, the cute gay couple I sat next to was extremely well behaved, but the two girls behind them either gave up on the movie two-thirds of the way through and started audibly making out or were chewing large wads of taffy with their mouths open (I didn’t turn around to find out).

Somehow I still managed to come away from this experience feeling like this was a solid, fun slasher, amusing enough in its critique of kids these days that it doesn’t come off as strident or winking, save for a handful of lines of dialogue that test one’s patience. If it never surpasses the benchmark of a sturdy, ultimately lightweight thriller, it’s a fault of ambition, not execution; everyone involved does their work effectively and efficiently, and while this may not be a new genre classic, it’s a fine calling card for Reijn, screenwriter Sarah DeLappe, and the cast, particularly Amandla Sternberg and Myha’la Herrold.

More than the much-discussed social commentary, it’s the script’s tight structure that works in the film’s favor, steadily keeping the proceedings moving forward while giving the audience just enough occasional breathing room to update their speculation about what’s going on here and why. Reijn’s lean direction doesn’t call attention to itself with unnecessary flashiness or stylization, serving her script and the actors with a welcome graciousness. 

It’s easy to imagine an extremely irritating version of this film, and it’s a credit to the filmmakers that they produced something perfectly watchable instead.

I had the polar opposite experience with this film, which is built around one of the most irritating scripts from recent memory; a lazy Sociology 101 satire of Gen Z. It's forced and vapid, full of cheap shots in lines of dialog so on-the-nose and immune to nuance that none of the actors - not even the incredible Rachel Sennott - can take what they're given and do anything amusing with it. As a thriller, it's completely uninvolving and numbed, and as a social commentary, the ideas are there but executed as winking jabs that manage to both mock those who say nothing, and say nothing about these observations. What an achievement. The characters are as obnoxiously undeveloped as they are obnoxious, and the action is constructed with extremely poor blocking - I had no concept of what was happening, where we were in spatial terms, etc. Neither of these 'lacking' faults function in a way that reflexively mimic the lack of groundedness these characters feel towards the mystery or their peers or zeitgeist or whatever, so there's no opportunity to create thematic meaning out of the formal failures. The filmmakers clearly want us to engage with this as a playful genre exercise, but the director and five(?!) writers are as ignorant (to the point of approaching the material as perceptively apathetic) about the genres they're working with as they are inept at crafting a film. I really hated this. The only good part is that Pete Davidson is in it much less than I expected him to be

[Mr Sausage]

My reaction was more in line with DarkImbecile’s. I don’t have much to add to his write up, but I do want to express my confusion that people are calling this a slasher. It’s not, right? Not even because of the structural negation behind the reveal, but because it’s a straightforward fixed location murder mystery. If it’s a slasher, so’s Knives Out.

Ultimately I preferred All My Friends Hate Me as a story of old friends getting together in a fixed location where suspicion and microaggressions continually grow—but I had fun with Bodies³. My favourite thing was how well the characters compartmentalized. They had endless recourse to the language and values of their set, but no ability to use any of the attendant concepts when confronted with demanding interpersonal situations.

[therewillbeblus]

It's not a slasher but it's stunted in unpacking genre in the same way its characters are stunted in unpacking what any of their terminology or opinions or trigger words mean. I guess there's something amusing -or rather appropriate to how this film sees its subjected generation- in how Pete Davidson challenges the overuse of the word "gaslight" in the least interesting or fair critique possible, but it doesn't come off as self-aware in this respect, and rather as poor writing. And if the script is deliberately dumbing itself down to lampoon the elitist progressives of Gen Z 'on their level', so what? That doesn't make the scene any more interesting for reflexively meeting the kids where they're at in issuing sloppy pacing and lame dialog processing handicaps. It's probably the third act kick-off, when all the characters are initiating and receiving and defending against each other's zeitgeist words around interpersonal dynamic accusations, where one will know if this works or deflates as a topical exercise. That's the moment that tanked the film for me completely, but if you're willing to see it as witty or entertaining, then the whole conceit will probably be deemed successful. I really don't see how anyone, regardless of enjoyment, can walk away from that scene without believing the film was condescending to its characters and winking its own smarts at the audience. It's practically a cartoon. That's not a criticism, but what else would they be going for there?

[Mr Sausage]

I don't know, I think you're putting more emphasis on the Gen Z trappings than the film ultimately does. That scene in the third act is just about people in extremis trying to balance normative social expectations with their actual emotions. Not unlike a dark British comedy where the characters all feel constrained to be polite even tho' the situation has progressed well beyond politeness. It's absurd and, sure, the characters come off as ridiculous, but it's only an extension of a well-known social behaviour that all of us have gone through in one form or another.

The film isn't about genre of even ultimately about Gen Z as a social phenomenon. It's more a comedic-dramatic exploration of how horror movie tropes and situations play out with people who are not well equipped to deal with heavy interpersonal situations while at the same time being over-familiar to the point of inurement with the language and concepts of trauma, addiction, mental health, etc. And like I said, I found the endless compartmentalization amusing and revealing. I liked that the characters could effortlessly talk about situations they weren't even slightly able to deal with. I liked that they could throw around the term gaslighting and yet not recognize the entire plot is a collective gaslight. I liked that they could think their best friend is a vicious killer and yet still take pains not to be offensive. It's amusing and kinda relatable. And I didn't take this element to be a unique criticism of a generation because of course this kind of compartmentalization is found widely among generations.

I can see why you hated it, but it worked for me.

[therewillbeblus]

I definitely perceived that the filmmakers were way more interested in emphasizing the specific terms, and condescending to a particular progressive zeitgeist, than in broadening a focus toward a collectively relatable experience of social dynamics. But, man, that all sounds great, I wish I saw the film you did! I also feel like I usually go out of my way to read a film in the exact kind of broader socio-thematic light you’re talking about, so not sure what happened here