New content!!! Yes, I'm an active reader, but I also enjoy watching films. I usually refrain from critical commentary (aside from some mini Letterboxd reviews), but earlier this week I watched Bodies Bodies Bodies, the new A24 film, and I had so many thoughts that I just had to get them out here. Cheers to me turning this book blog into a lifestyle blog instead. Don't worry, upcoming content is decidedly bookish in nature: I recently announced I will be revamping my retired Cover Love feature with a new post for the month of September. First, a brief summary: the film is a horror movie centered around a group of wealthy Gen Z young adults, all of whom are staying at one of their houses for a weekend, during a hurricane. This creates a locked-room mystery when characters start dying. From A24: "When a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game goes awry in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong." There is an immediate insider/outsider divide established in the group, as most of them are friends but two of the friends (Sophie--Amandla Stenberg--and Alice--Rachel Sennott) have brought significant others who have never met the group before. These are essentially strangers, and they help add a layer of distrust and confusion when things start to go wrong. Reputation and trust play a huge part in the film, as characters use their prior bonds to justify each others' potential innocence and guilt. As a graduate of a New England prep school (I own this and all the ridiculousness that goes into it), I was most disturbed at the end of the movie by the concept that all of the characters in this film could be credibly replaced by an amalgamation of people I knew in high school. Sure, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a horror film, but it's also a black comedy with moments where characters act with such social and political ineptitude that most audiences would be jarred out of the film experience by thinking "surely nobody would let /that/ come out of their mouth unchecked." Prime examples include (paraphrasing) "Of course he's a good person, he's a libra moon," "'Your parents are upper middle class... they're professors.' 'no they're not... they teach at a *public* university,'" "David’s dad can be a dick but his politics check out," and my favorite: "Don’t call her a psychopath. It’s so ableist." Surely, you think, as you sit in the theater, no one would just... say these things out loud... AND YET. AND YET they do, every day. I promise. The script is heavy handed intentionally, and I approve. Lessening any of the drama and righteousness attributed to each of these characters would do the film a disservice in its pursuit of irony. I would argue that despite being advertised as a horror film, and though it comes with a fair amount of blood, Bodies Bodies Bodies is more interesting as a power struggle drama while audiences track shifting relationships and watching characters fall in and out of favor with each other. Exactly like high school. Director Halina Reijn sticks true to the film's title by including a lot of group imagery--swimming, dancing, close gatherings during partying and arguments. This made sense to me, as the tension of this particular mystery was based on group dynamics rather than isolation-based fear. The more these characters had to be around each other, the more opportunities they had to needle each other and push long-standing buttons. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a critique of social media culture--contrasting a world where social justice buzzwords like "gaslighting" "toxic" and "ally" are thrown around with the same rooms where characters are actually being brutally murdered. It investigates superficiality, where rich young people reveal their venomous sides from the start, and only get worse. The script lets all of these ideas through even while it works overtime ensuring that none of the characters are portrayed solely as villains. They have intense inner lives and conflicts, which we see play out for everyone in group and solo shots. The friends aren't caricatures, they're real people to audiences with interesting problems and relationships. The group casting is standout, and they were all effective in their given roles, but I feel that Rachel Sennott as Alice was the standout performer. I've seen her work before (Shiva Baby) and immediately marked her as a star to watch. This film proves that she is diversifying her portfolio and can succeed in a variety of castings. Alice is, in short, every girl from my high school rolled into one. Fun, vacuous, deeply concerned with appearing socially conscious, terminally online. Bodies Bodies Bodies lets Sennott unleash her impeccable comedic timing, and I can't wait to see what she does next. Overall I'm giving Bodies Bodies Bodies a 4/5 star rating. This is the first film I've seen that I think effectively critiques Gen Z internet culture in a meaningful way. I think satire can engage with these issues while being funny and insightful in a way that we desperately need if we are going to examine our relationships with online visibility and how it permeates our personal relationships.
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The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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