Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Directed by Halina Reijn
Partly — Bodies Bodies Bodies is somewhat woke, scoring 45 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Bodies Bodies Bodies arrives as an A24 whodunit in which seven wealthy twenty-somethings gather at a family mansion for a hurricane party, play a murder-in-the-dark game, and proceed to die for reasons that turn out to be entirely stupid.
Consciousness Markers
The central relationship is between Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee, a lesbian couple whose romance drives the emotional stakes, with additional queer flirtation between Sophie and Emma.
A notably diverse Gen Z ensemble — Black, Bulgarian, Asian, and Jewish performers — though the diversity is organic to the friend-group premise rather than foregrounded as a statement.
The film is explicitly a satire of class and privilege, contrasting working-class Bee against trust-fund friends, and Jordan accuses Sophie of exploiting David for access to her money.
A woman director (Halina Reijn) and a predominantly female cast center women's friendships and grievances, but the film offers satire rather than a feminist thesis.
The film is saturated with Gen Z progressive jargon — 'gaslight,' 'trigger,' 'toxic' — but deploys it as satirical target rather than earnest sermon.
The cast is multiracial, but race is never a theme, subject of commentary, or source of conflict in the narrative.
Bee briefly mentions her mother has borderline personality disorder as an explanation for dropping out of college, but it is a passing plot detail, not representation.
The hurricane is a plot device to isolate the characters and kill the power; no environmental or climate messaging is present.
No body-positivity themes appear; the cleavage controversy was external press drama, not content of the film.
No historical events or figures are reinterpreted; the film is a contemporary fictional whodunnit.
Why it received this score
Bodies Bodies Bodies arrives as an A24 whodunit in which seven wealthy twenty-somethings gather at a family mansion for a hurricane party, play a murder-in-the-dark game, and proceed to die for reasons that turn out to be entirely stupid. Halina Reijn directs with a steady hand, and the ensemble is impeccable in the way a well-set table is impeccable. The film's final joke, that no murder ever occurred and the carnage was the product of panic and a champagne bottle, lands with the dull thud of a thesis statement read aloud at a party.
In terms of social consciousness, the picture is a curious specimen. Its central romance is a lesbian relationship, handled with genuine warmth and no editorializing, and the cast is notably diverse without anyone stopping to announce it. The class satire is sharper. Bee, the working-class outsider from Eastern Europe, is set against friends who have never known a bill, and Jordan eventually accuses Sophie of exploiting David for trust-fund access. This is the film's real subject, and it is a good one. Race, meanwhile, is present in the casting and absent from the text, which is either a quiet virtue or simply not the movie's business. Environmental messaging is nonexistent. The hurricane exists to kill the power and trap the guests, and it does its job without comment.
The film's relationship with progressive vocabulary is the most interesting thing about it. Words like gaslight, trigger, and toxic tumble from every mouth, but the screenplay treats them as symptoms, not arguments. When the Wi-Fi dies, so does the group's ability to speak to each other as people. The result is satire that flatters its audience for noticing, then indicts them for the same fluency. It is a smart, mean little movie. It is not, however, trying to save anyone.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
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Synopsis
In an isolated family mansion, a group of rich 20-somethings decides to play Bodies Bodies Bodies, a game where one of them is secretly a "killer" while the rest tries to "escape". Things take a turn for the worse when real bodies start turning up, setting off a paranoid and dangerous chain of events.
Questions about Bodies Bodies Bodies
Is Bodies Bodies Bodies woke?
Partly — Bodies Bodies Bodies is somewhat woke, scoring 45 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Woke-Adjacent.
What makes Bodies Bodies Bodies woke?
5 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by LGBTQ+ Themes (72), Representation Casting (50) and Eat the Rich (45). On LGBTQ+ Themes: The central relationship is between Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee, a lesbian couple whose romance drives the emotional stakes, with additional queer flirtation between Sophie and Emma.
How does Bodies Bodies Bodies compare to other 2022 movies?
It ranks #36 of the 223 films from 2022 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is Bros (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.