It’s not what is said or hidden that drives “It’s What’s Inside”, but the fracture between what one assumes they know about others and the brutality of what is actually discovered. Greg Jardin orchestrates a narrative that seeps into the crevices of the psyche like someone probing a poorly healed wound. The film begins with a party atmosphere among friends — a seemingly typical setting of reconciliation and lightness — but the abrupt rupture of this harmony reveals that the laughter was nothing more than a thin veil, ready to tear before the abyss each character carries within. The suspense lies not in what is unveiled, but in the unpredictability of when and how the truth will erupt — and at what cost.
What unfolds from the introduction of a device that accesses the inner workings of each mind is less a conventional thriller and more a collective breakdown experiment. Jardin avoids cheap scares and artificial twists. He opts instead for a meticulously built progression of tension, where Kevin Fletcher’s cinematography serves as an emotional compass, guiding the viewer through the winding corridors of a setting that simultaneously confines and exposes. Andrew Hewitt’s score — at times overflowing — contributes to this mounting sense of disorientation, where the very notion of reality bends under the weight of internal revelations.
At the moral core of the plot is the recklessness of those who mistake youth for emotional immunity. The characters believe — with the faith of the naive — that the games they play among themselves come without consequence, until the roll of the dice reveals that every move comes at a cost. The criticism that unfolds isn’t just about aimless youth, but about the fallacy of total freedom when others are disregarded. Jardin articulates this point with disquieting precision, showing that emotions, too, can become instruments of destruction when misunderstood.
The narrative’s central device — the suitcase that intrudes into the mind — works less as a sci-fi gimmick and more as a symbolic lens through which the violence of intimacy is refracted. By forcing the characters to confront their own masks, the script shifts the viewer’s gaze toward what is irretrievable in human relationships when trust is replaced by manipulation. The space where everything happens — isolated, claustrophobic, lit in tones that shift between the red of threat and the gray of alienation — reinforces the sense that nothing escapes the group’s judging gaze, not even what should have remained hidden.
Shelby, portrayed with sharp precision by Brittany O’Grady, is not merely the most complex figure in the group — she acts as the synthesis of the contradiction between appearance and vulnerability. Her performance cuts through the film like a silent blade, revealing the internal devastation behind a calculated smile. Amid a cast that oscillates between seductive and desperate, O’Grady offers an emotional counterpoint that keeps the viewer on edge. Her presence makes the story’s instability even more tangible — as if each of her gestures signaled a new fracture in the group’s already crumbling façade.
But perhaps the most unsettling aspect of “It’s What’s Inside” lies in its ability to portray, without preaching, the contemporary pathology of exposure. Jardin observes with biting lucidity how social media has eroded the boundaries between self and other, between intimacy and performance. In this environment where every identity is subject to curation, the film operates as a necessary and distorted mirror: what happens when we lose control over our own narrative? And worse — when we surrender that narrative to a group just as disoriented as ourselves?
Far from offering easy answers, the film’s conclusion embraces ambiguity. It doesn’t hint at a sequel as a commercial hook, but rather suggests that the terrain Jardin has opened — of paranoia, guilt, and the hunger for control — is far from exhausted. The unease that lingers is less about what has happened than what still could, in a world where the lines between truth, memory, and identity are in continual erosion. In that vacuum, what proliferates aren’t answers, but new urgencies.
Film: It’s What’s Inside
Director: Greg Jardin
Year: 2024
Genres: Comedy/Mystery/Thriller
Rating: 8/10