Gossip Girl Turns Lord of the Flies: Bodies Bodies Bodies

In the “olden” times, rich people would often have to come up with melodramas to keep themselves amused. After all, they certainly didn’t have “work” as a distraction. Such was the way of “tawdry” affairs and other self-made drama in the time of the courtesans at Versailles, the socialites of the East Coast elucidated by Edith Wharton and Henry James, or the nouveau riche ilk described and embodied by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And it was the latter two worlds that Gossip Girl was molded after. Hence, the Netflix summary for the original version (as if there’s any other) being, “Rich, unreasonably attractive private school students do horrible, scandalous things to each other. Repeatedly.” The bottom line is, the self-involvement and general pettiness of the affluent is so profound that they can convince themselves of just about anything when it comes to perceived “threats.” Whether social… or otherwise.

It’s both social and “otherwise” in the case of Bodies Bodies Bodies, yet another movie of the horror variety under A24’s belt, albeit horror-comedy (still, nothing can usurp Shaun of the Dead). The spec script of which was originally written by Kristen Roupenian (of “Cat Person” fame), who was eventually given a “Story by” credit after The Wolves playwright Sarah DeLappe rewrote the screenplay. Perhaps that’s why the film does have many “play-like” qualities, down to the single location and dialogue-heavy interactions. As for Roupenian ending up with the “Story by” credit, it feels karmically ironic considering “Cat Person” was essentially a “Story by” Alexis Nowicki. In terms of DeLappe’s own familiarity with the heightened dramas of youth (that often extend well into adulthood), The Wolves is entirely about a group of high school girls who meet every Saturday for their soccer team’s pre-game warm-up, often allowing for plenty of tongue-lashing gossip.

But Bodies Bodies Bodies isn’t just about the absurdity of Gen Z parlance and worldviews, so much as the time-honored tradition of holding up the rich—and especially the children of the rich—as unapologetic narcissists. And there’s that word, the one that white men like David (Pete Davidson, goonish as ever), the host of the “hurricane party” at the center of this social storm, have learned to weaponize for themselves against the women who accuse them of being such. Along with other “tired” internet tropes and terms like “gaslighting,” which David’s girlfriend, Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), also accuses him of doing to her. But before this sets him off on a tangent about Emma not having a single original thought in her head (as no one of Gen Z can), we’re introduced to Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), two raging-with-passion significant others the audience gets to know quite well in the opening scene…in all their raging-with-passion glory.

Just when the viewer might start to think this is a “different kind of movie,” Sophie gives us the expository dialogue about how her friends are going to love Bee. This said in the car on the way to David’s mansion in the middle of the nowhere, better known as Westchester. The playground of the rich when they’re not turning New York City into their own personal Instagram or TikTok backdrop. This includes NYU students. Indeed, Alice (Rachel Sennott, of Shiva Baby repute) is sure to mention that the last time she saw Sophie, she was “coked out on the subway, pissing on the floor like a little hyena.” She then adds, for self-superior cachet, “I thought you were an NYU student.” That’s largely because Sophie was a drug addict only recently gone sober (after, as we later learn, her so-called friends narc’d on her to her parents and got them to cut off her trust fund access so she would take getting clean seriously).

Now showing up uninvited to David’s “hurricane party” (kind of making her the Serena to David’s Blair), her motives for doing so start to become apparent as she tries to curry David’s favor, wanting him to vouch for her to her parents that she’s “steady” enough to have the purse strings loosened. But back to the very concept of a “hurricane party”: not only is it peak blasé attitude with regard to how New Yorkers like to view everything, crisis or otherwise, it’s also a testament to how the rich feel immune to any form of consequences, including climate change-related weather phenomena. That’s why David screams, as the rain begins to come down in sheets, “Is that all you’ve got, motherfucker?!” (it’s all very Lieutenant Dan, except lacking the part where the viewer has empathy for David’s character). This said after the group, complete with Alice’s dubiously older boyfriend, Greg (Lee Pace), chose to pass some of the time by holding their breath under the water to see who could outlast one another the longest. The “activity” offers up a brief moment where David looks like Cameron (Alan Ruck) in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, needing to be fished out of the pool by Emma because he’s too ennui-laden to care that Sophie has arrived. And, talking of 80s John Hughes movies, the class element of Sophie bringing her “piece of low-grade ass” (as Steff [James Spader] would say) to the event makes the already-present sense of contention ripe for further conflict among those who don’t trust outsiders, let alone “the poor.” Part of why David condescendingly tells Bee, “Yum” when she hands him a loaf of homemade zucchini bread.

Rachel, meanwhile, takes Sophie’s arrival as an opportunity to siphon some of the good champagne from David’s father’s alcohol reserve. This followed by Greg kifing a machete (a kukri, to be specific) from the wall—because why wouldn’t a rich person display this?—and using it to cut open the bottle like it’s nothing. Establishing yet another palpable difference between Greg and the cluster of Gen Zers he’s foolishly chosen to fraternize with. After all, every generation is “other” to Gen Z, despite 1) their contempt for othering and 2) how the sect frequently rips off aspects and “character traits” from those that have preceded them.

As though to highlight the vapidity of the generation, Rachel responds to Greg’s effortless physical prowess with, “So sick. I can’t believe we didn’t video that.” This leaves a jealous David further fuming, for he knows he’s part of a generation that is flaccid in every possible way, including physically. Maybe that’s part of why most members of his demographic have ceased to bother. With, well, much of anything. Least of all caring (though Sophie promises Bee, “They’re not as nihilistic as they seem”) or having anything resembling a profound thought (granted, Gen Z is filled with pseudo-profundities). It all plays into the ever popular and relevant showcase of the decayed American dream. Which is precisely why director Halina Reijn (this being her English-language feature debut) stated of the location choice, “We saw a lot of houses, and a lot of them are very beautiful with lots of glass. I wanted something that was a symbol of the American Dream gone wrong, like greed and narcissism. So a very decadent mansion, but with a little bit of neoclassicism, if you will.”

Unfortunately, due to the theory of Idiocracy, it isn’t only “regulars” who have grown more insipid over the centuries (in large part thanks to the rise of screens and the fall of printed, tangible literature). It’s also rich twats. For you can bet your bottom dollar that the richies of the neoclassical era were at least slightly more likable than the Gen Z cunts presented in Bodies Bodies Bodies, which, rather than being a comedy of manners, is a comedy of horrors. All of them ultimately manufactured because a group of six people couldn’t simply endure a hurricane in peace—they had to delude themselves on manifold levels to make it more “interesting.” The group would technically be comprised of seven, if one were to include Greg, but being that he’s so overtly Gen X, it doesn’t feel fair to make him part of the head count. Indeed, he basically gets killed because he’s a white man in his forties. Totally anathema to the Gen Z set’s not-so-tacit “policy” of “non-binary and POC only.” Regardless of color or creed, Bodies Bodies Bodies illuminates (and not just through smartphone flashlights) that Gen Zers are of the stock that, at the end of a major, theoretically emotionally harrowing bloodbath, can only think to remark, “I have reception.”

That latter announcement comes long after a game of “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (which also gets played in its own way in “The Tell” episode of Only Murders in the Building) turns too real. For the so-called “close-knit” group of friends (since childhood, therefore bound not just by class, but a lifetime of shared memories; again, it’s all very Gossip Girl) easily turn on one another as the “game” progresses. And it is often the combative Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) at the helm of shifting accusations. At one point, she reaches the “logical” conclusion that Bee must be the killer, convincing Sophie and Alice to cast her out into the maelstrom. When she manages to sneak her way back in and plea with Sophie to trust her, Jordan declares, “You and that psychopath deserve each other!” Sophie yells back, “That is so ableist!” Because yes, all the “correct” vocabulary revered by Gen Z is in place, from “you trigger me” to “I’m an ally.” Even the tagline, “This is not a safe space” is trolling Gen Z. Along with the song so lovingly written just for the occasion of the film: Charli XCX’s “Hot Girl.” A single that sounds as though it could have also been crafted specifically with Regina George in mind. But that’s the thing about Gen Z: at the end of the day, they’re still emulating millennial stylings rather than creating their own (ergo, a movie like Do Revenge).

As things intensify into a Lord of the Flies scenario within what should be the “safe space” of a mansion, all remaining “revelers” start to turn on one another. Especially after Alice delivers the ultimate blow to Jordan when she tells her, “Your parents are Upper. Middle. Class.” It’s enough to set Jordan off in a way that makes the final attendees of the botched “party” believe she must have been the killer all along. Or was the presumed murderer nothing more than a phantom? Created in the minds of these rich assholes because, as Janis Ian said, “You think everyone is in love with you when actually everybody hates you.” Including their “own kind.”

Thus, as time soldiers on, the rich don’t really change. They just find more ridiculous ways of “staying entertained” (see also: Armie Hammer). And while everyone still covets money in an epoch when it’s never been clearer just how detrimental capitalism is, Bodies Bodies Bodies reminds viewers of every age of that “cliché” (but true) adage: money can’t buy happiness. Instead, it only seems to assure complete misery and soullessness.