PIHM Film Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies
Directed by Halina Reijn, written by Sarah DeLappe from a story by Kristen Roupenian
I love dark comedies and horror comedies. I especially love when they focus on messy characters, and Bodies Bodies Bodies is filled with those. The cast is led by Maria Bakalova as Bee and Amandla Stenberg as Sophie, and has several queer actors playing straight or queer characters in the small cast. The film follows a group of affluent young people, Alice, David, Emma, Jordan, and Sophie, who have been friends for years, and newcomer Bee, who is a lower-class immigrant. Bee is brought into the group as Sophie’s new girlfriend, who was in recovery and has not been around her old friends for some time. Missing Max and Alice’s much older boyfriend, Greg, round out the cast.
They are eagerly awaiting an impending storm and are having a sleepover party at an isolated mansion with a ton of alcohol and drugs. This simple setting reveals long simmering feuds, jealousy, secrets, and lies while the body count rises. As the group starts dwindling, their intoxication and paranoia erodes trust as the group turns on one another in a comical fashion. Some of the insults are so petty, showing how out of touch these people are even as people are dying, like the reveal that Jordan “hate listens” to Alice’s podcast, who tearfully defends her show and shoots back that Jordan’s attempt at downplaying her family’s money is laughable. Rachel Sennott’s & Myha’la’s delivery of this scene is hilarious, and it is probably the most famous scene from the film. No one really comes out of this movie as likable, except for maybe Max, who is barely in the film. Regardless, the cast keeps you invested into who will survive the night and who the killer or killers may be.
The soundtrack is fun and creepy. It relates well to the story with its dance/club music undertones; my favourite track is probably Jealousy into Light. I also enjoyed the styling/ costumes. I love how they chose to style Sophie, and Amandla worked with the team to design her black and green manicure, leaving two nails on the dominant hand short as a signifier of Sophie’s queer identity. The lighting is well done, utilizing a lot of dark scenes where the characters are only illuminated by lamps, cell phone flashlights, or glow necklaces. Despite all the dark scenes or some rainy scenes, I never had any difficulty watching what was happening on screen. It’s not Argento or anything, but the choice to use the necklaces was very clever.
I enjoyed how raw the relationships between Sophie and Bee and Sophie and Jordan are. They may not be “good” but I thought they were solid queer representation. Some folks complained at how sexualized Bee and Sophie were onscreen, but I didn’t think it was anything too extreme. I saw it as a way to show their relationship was still in the extremely hot and heavy early days, and that they may not know each other that well at all. Others may disagree though and cite it as another hypersexualized wlw couple. Overall, even though I like this one, I can see why some wouldn’t. It is a bit mean-spirited to the characters and, like I said earlier, they are all rather unlikable to varying degrees. I think it is a fun film showing how extremely privileged young people and how some of them adeptly weaponized therapy terms to manipulate each other. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a film that highlights how easily even long friends can turn on one another and how sometimes it is better just to leave some friendships in the past.
Review by Dee
Twitter & BlueSky: @sirenofscience
