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All images are courtesy of Netflix.
CSP Times Rating: 4.8/5
Stumbling upon It’s What's Inside, a Netflix thriller that almost slipped past my radar but came highly recommended by a friend, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Now I’m glad I pressed play.
On the surface, Greg Jardin’s debut feature feels like your standard pre-wedding reunion — old friends gathering, casual nostalgia in the air. But with a quick turn, this cosy setup gives way to existential chaos. A mysterious suitcase, housing a bizarre body-swapping machine, derails the weekend and transforms it into a psychological maze. What starts as a novelty descends into a surreal gauntlet, where friendships fracture, identities unravel, and hidden secrets burst from every character.
The story centres on Shelby, a character quietly tormented by her emotionally aloof boyfriend, Cyrus. Shelby’s joined by others like Nikki, a social media star whose pristine online veneer conceals a much messier reality offline. As they begin swapping bodies, the friends’ experiment goes from playful to perverse, forcing each to live out the other's insecurities, flaws, and buried regrets.
Where It’s What's Inside truly excels is in its razor-sharp probe into identity, control, and the fragility of digital-age relationships. Jardin’s direction skillfully transforms the cramped house into a claustrophobic nightmare, reflecting the internal breakdowns triggered by each body swap. Shelby’s spiraling anxiety mirrors the chaos around her, as the loss of bodily autonomy exposes deeper insecurities. The film isn’t merely about living as someone else — it’s about the disquieting notion that maybe we don’t even know who we are in the first place.
Jardin’s narrative digs at the hollowness of modern connections, especially through Nikki. As a social media influencer, she’s the epitome of the curated, envy-worthy lifestyle, but when her friends occupy her body, they experience the uncomfortable truth behind her carefully crafted persona. The film underscores how social media often fakes closeness, masking a deeper emotional divide. Each character swap forces the group to confront the fact that their friendships, forged on outdated perceptions, might be more performance than reality.
Themes of control ripple through Shelby’s relationship with Cyrus, particularly as the swaps intensify and her fear of losing both physical and emotional control grows. Jardin’s jittery editing heightens this tension, pulling the audience into the characters’ unraveling psyches. As Shelby slips further, her anxiety reveals the relationship’s imbalances, emphasising how Cyrus’s aloofness only deepens her insecurities.
Yet beyond the psychological twists, It’s What's Inside taps into a more profound existential terror: losing oneself. The body-swapping premise raises unsettling questions about identity — if you’re trapped in someone else’s body, who are you, really? This primal fear of dissolution drives the film’s darkest moments, where characters wrestle with their own erasure. In this sense, the movie trades its external thrills for an internal horror — one where selfhood itself becomes the battleground.
Ultimately, It’s What's Inside peels back the delicate fabric of identity and friendship in the digital age. As long-buried truths come to light, the bonds holding these friends together begin to crack, exposing the fragility of relationships that can’t keep pace with the people we become. Jardin lures viewers in with the promise of a thriller, but what he delivers is a deep dive into modern anxieties. By the end, It’s What's Inside reminds us that true horror doesn’t need a boogeyman lurking in the shadows — sometimes, the scariest thing is what's hiding inside ourselves.
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