This is a movie that it’s really best to go into as blind as possible. I was supposed to see this one back in March at SXSW, and it (along with I Saw the TV Glow) was one of the ones I was most excited about, even though I ended up getting bumped from both of them by passholders (such is the nature of being a townie). I avoided reading anything more about it until it premiered on Netflix this week, and it was all that I could have dreamed of and more. I’ll put up a spoiler warning before I get into anything that gives too much away, but I’d recommend you skip this review if you haven’t seen it yet, and avoid any other reviews that might reveal too much about the film’s plot. 

Shelby (Brittany O’Grady from White Lotus) and her boyfriend Cyrus (James Morosini) have been together for nine years, and it’s less than blissful. Shortly before they travel to attend a wedding of one of their old college friends, Shelby attempts to seduce Cyrus while wearing a blonde wig, a fantasy of his that she was less than enthused about. When she enters the room, however, she catches him masturbating to a gangbang video, having (unbeknownst to her) just navigated two tabs over from the Instagram account of Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey), Cyrus’s longtime crush who was part of the same circle of close knit friends and who is now an influencer of some notoriety. The groom to be is Reuben (Devon Terrell), who is soon to marry a woman named Sophia, but, the night before the wedding, he’s hosting a final party at the home of his late mother, an artist who purchased a stately manse and turned it into a living exhibit, meaning that one might go down a corridor and end up in a room that looks like an inside out disco ball, with a light pulsating at the center. Also in attendance are stoner Brooke (Reina Hardesty), modern day flower child Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), and trust fund kid and Post Malone wannabe Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood, of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). An eighth friend, Forbes (David W. Thompson), is mentioned, and the falling out that he had with Dennis is revealed in flashback. Forbes was invited but never responded, although he does surprise the others by showing up at the party, carrying a suitcase that holds something mysterious inside. 

There’s a similar “trapped a party that you can’t leave” vibe here that’s reminiscent of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, although the twists and turns that each film takes are starkly divergent. As a setting, Reuben’s mother’s house and all of its installations make for a film that, despite being set almost entirely in one house, manages to remain visually interesting throughout. Odd sculptures and light fixtures litter rooms that feel as if they were designed to make it feel like you’re inside of a beating heart. There’s even a literal glowing sign that says “TRAUMA,” even though this is not that kind of movie. The tension between Cyrus and Shelby is palpable and real, and his lack of interest in getting married or even engaged is something that other characters take note of and comment upon, and Cyrus’s defensiveness only draws attention to what a terrible boyfriend he is. Not only does he not respond when Shelby tries to give him one of his fantasies, but he’s also clearly lying about how often he’s jerking it on PornHub despite having promised to save his sexual energy for his partner. When she’s not around, he complains to his old buddies that she’s always trying to get him to go out and “have new experiences,” his voice dripping with disdain when he mentions that she tried to get him to go dancing. He’s not evil; he’s just selfish, withholding, and dishonest. Once they get to the estate, it becomes more and more clear that there’s a lot of that going around. Despite it being the night before his wedding, Reuben is clearly still in love with Maya, whom he dated years earlier, and there’s also romantic history between Dennis and Nikki, which further complicates things. And boy, are we going to get to explore every angle of these sexual and romantic dodecahedron. 

Ok, this is your last chance to get out before spoilers. You have been warned. 

As we find out in a story that is told to Shelby about a party in college that she didn’t attend, Forbes and Dennis got into a fight years earlier when Forbes brought his high school aged sister, Beatrice, to a party, where she got too drunk and the cops were called, resulting in Forbes being expelled. After that he moved out west, got involved with tech, and hasn’t really been in contact with the others since. In the present, Forbes opens his suitcase to reveal a device that he convinces the others to try by putting electrodes on their temples, promising a “twenty second experience.” What then happens is a full on Freaky Friday, in which all of the members of the group swap consciousnesses for a brief period of time. Although Shelby is understandably freaked out about the fact that Forbes shuffled everyone’s minds around without really explaining what he was about to do, Cyrus pressures her into playing a game that Forbes proposes. Similar to Mafia or Werewolf, the eight party-goers swap consciousnesses with one another, with Forbes acting as DM. If you guess who someone is, they have to admit the truth and wear a Polaroid of who’s “inside,” but if you guess incorrectly, you must reveal yourself and get no further guesses.

The first round ends up being a success for everyone but Cyrus. When a guess is made that Cyrus is in Dennis’s body, the true occupant, Forbes, pretends that this is correct, leaving Cyrus, who is in Reuben’s body, to be forced to play along that he’s actually Forbes in Reuben’s body (confused yet)? Although Cyrus-in-Reuben first tries to use this to his advantage when he realizes that Reuben’s old flame Maya is in Nikki’s body—Maya-in-Nikki is hot for Reuben while Cyrus-in-Reuben is hot for Nikki—he quickly weirds her out, then is forced to watch as Shelby-in-Brooke has a good time with Dennis-in-Cyrus. For Shelby, she’s having the subjective experience of being with her boyfriend(‘s body), but one who’s fun-loving and willing to dance with her, and when she starts to loosen up and joke about Cyrus’s porn habits, he’s forced to continue to pretend to be Forbes-in-Reuben. After everyone switches back, it’s now Cyrus’s turn to be the one who doesn’t want to play, while Shelby tells him that she’s actually having a good time. When he insists that they work out a sign between them that will let the other know who they really are, she reluctantly agrees, but once the second round begins, none of the other participants returns the sign, so Cyrus-in-Forbes wanders the party, sullen and miserable. Things really take a turn for the worse when two of the group sneak off and hook up, again per the same mutual inner-attracted-to-outer situation as Cyrus and Maya in the first round, and they end up falling to their deaths. Now, two people find themselves unable to return to their own bodies, leading to friction between them and the others who have bodies to return to, while Forbes realizes that he’s made a huge mistake and attempts to simply take the device and flee. From here it’s a twisting, turning game of manipulation as each person tries to figure out where they’ll end up once they all sit down from the game of mindswap musical chairs. 

The visual language of the film is a lot of fun. Early on, one of the partygoers mentions that she has been working on a new art form, wherein she draws images of people inside of images of other people, which are revealed by placing colored plastic over the drawings that filter out the top image and show what’s underneath. This neatly sets up later scenes in which we the audience, looking through different panes of glass in the mansion, see who’s inside of whom at certain points. The flashback to the night that Forbes and Dennis had their falling out is told through a series of monochromatic still images that look like Instagram-ready party pics, with a mini-Rashomon playing out as Brooke and Maya recall certain details slightly differently as the images change in real time to reflect the corrections from each storyteller. It’s also an interesting choice that we spend most of the film with Cyrus, regardless of which body he’s in, as he moves through the party, given that he is, for all intents and purposes, one of the antagonists of the film, at least when it comes to the way that he treats Shelby. His narcissism drives the narrative, and it’s satisfying to see him get his comeuppance, even if his punishment far outweighs his actual sins. I don’t want to give any more away; just go watch!

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond