{"id":18665,"date":"2022-08-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18665"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:12:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:12:11","slug":"review-bodies-bodies-bodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-bodies-bodies-bodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bodies Bodies Bodies<\/em> is a fascinating experiment, an attempt to combine two subgenres \u2013 the one-crazy-night comedy and the whodunit mystery \u2013 that are fundamentally incompatible. The former is marked by its shaggy looseness, an anything-goes spirit, and heavy improvisation; the latter requires drum-tightness, a discipline and commitment to the murder(s), the gathering of clues, the elimination of suspects. They don\u2019t quite <\/em>pull it off. But it\u2019s fun to watch them try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cthem,\u201d in this case, is director Halina Reign and a team of five credited screenwriters \u2013 surprising, as the picture does seem formed from a singular sensibility. That sensibility is, first and foremost, unapologetically and unabashedly gay, opening on a tight close-up of some very earnest kissing and cuddling between Bee (Maria Bakalova) and Sophie (Amandia Stenberg). \u201cI love you,\u201d Sopie tells Bee. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to say it back. I just\u2026 I love you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bee looks nervous, and not for the first time. They\u2019re on their way to the remote, ginormous mansion of Sophie\u2019s childhood pal David (Pete Davidson), where the bulk of their friend crew has gathered \u2013 all of them ultra-rich, leaving working-class Bee feeling extremely out of her element. But Sophie is feeling a bit out of place as well, since she just ended a stint in rehab, and her pals are all hard-drinking, hard-partying types. They\u2019re hunkering down to ride out a hurricane \u2013 and it\u2019s coming on fast \u2013 but their little hurricane party turns into a night of mayhem and murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These early scenes are some of the picture\u2019s best. Bakalova is a good entry point, empathetic as she tries to fit in and catch up, and Reign creates an atmosphere that mixes good times and weird vibes \u2013 a sense that pieces of shared history are being ignored, that everyone\u2019s resentments and irritation are just barely<\/em> under the surface. Finally the question is posed: \u201cWho wants to play Bodies Bodies Bodies?\u201d The titular game is a pretend murder-mystery type of thing, with a secret \u201ckiller\u201d taking out other guests until the survivors puzzle out their identity, but this group takes it quite seriously (\u201cThis game gets very ugly\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And then it gets very real indeed, with an actual dead body and no way to call for help. The internal logic of what follows mostly checks out \u2013 you can see how the situation would keep escalating, and how the survivors would end up turning on each other, sometimes viciously, sometimes lethally. It\u2019s anxiety-inducing, and sometimes funny, and sometimes messy. But the wheels come off the wagon a bit in the  home stretch; there\u2019s a sense that the scribes have written themselves into a corner and aren\u2019t sure how to wiggle out of it, so we end up with clumsy gunplay and big shout-y confrontations, and a loss of the gleeful irreverence that makes what comes before so memorable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performers help keep it afloat. Everyone is solid, but the standouts are probably Lee Pace as a blissfully Zen, too-old-for-the-room boyfriend (unlike Bee, he\u2019s an outsider who doesn\u2019t mind it) and Rachel Sinott as one of the friends. Her performance here confirms what her leading turn in Shiva, Baby<\/em> promised \u2013 she\u2019s an absolute firecracker, the kind of performer who gets a laugh no matter what she\u2019s saying or doing (\u201cHe\u2019s a Libra Moon! That says a lot!\u201d). Bakalova is a bit of a disappointment \u2013 not because she\u2019s bad, but because her role relegates her to the straight woman (so to speak), which seems like a real waste of such a magnificent comic presence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is actor-turned-director Reign\u2019s sophomore feature, and she\u2019s quite good at setting scenes; the music pulses, the photography is energetic and colorful (the cinematographer is Jasper Wolf), and the visceral quality of the filmmaking helps put the viewer into that mansion, partying alongside these rich kids, observing the unmistakable earmarks of a night careening out of control. If the movie didn\u2019t do the same, this could\u2019ve been an all-timer.\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B-<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

“Bodies Bodies Bodies” is out Friday in limited release. It opens nationwide on August 12.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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