Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘It’s What’s Inside’ presents a heady mix of mystery and thriller to deliver a truly confusing tale. It begins at a party hosted by Reuben, who is set to get married the next day. Before he ties the knot, he wants to have one last night of fun with his friends from college. This includes Shelby and Cyrus (who are a couple), Nikki (who is an influencer), Dennis (the most reckless of the lot, but also rich), Maya (who found Buddhism in Bali and is also Reuben’s ex-flame), and Brooke (an artist who seems to be at good terms with everyone). The last one to arrive at the party is Forbes, who has been out of touch with everyone for many years.
What makes Forbes more mysterious is his suitcase, in which he has a machine that he and his team have been working on for the past five years. The machine allows its users to switch bodies amongst each other, leaving an option open for them to switch back to who they were originally. Forbes suggests they play a game of switching into each other with the machine, but after the second round of the game, things get really weird. The revelations at the end change everything thereafter. SPOILERS AHEAD
Why did Beatrice Steal Forbes’ Machine? Was She Forbes the Whole Time?
One of the central events in the movie seems to be something that happened eight years ago. At Dennis’ birthday party, Forbes brought his underage sister, Beatrice. Unbeknownst to others, Beatrice had mental health issues, which led her to have episodes. Also, out of the knowledge of the others, she was having an affair with Dennis, who was with Nikki at the time. At the party, Beatrice got drunk, mainly due to Dennis handing her one drink after another. She started talking to people about how she and Dennis were together, who continued to deny their connection, mainly because he was still with Nikki.
His lies led Beatrice to have an episode, which ended with a fight. But then, while the others got away with it, Forbes was forced out of college for bringing his underage sister to a drinking party. Worse happened with Beatrice, who was sent to a mental health institution and put under suicide watch. For years, she was trapped there until her brother came back with a machine. Forbes thought it would be a fun way to connect with his sister again. He’d played the game before with his teammates, but Beatrice had other things in mind. When they swapped bodies, Beatrice (now in Forbes’ body) decided that she didn’t want to switch back anymore. She attacked Forbes (in Beatrice’s body) and ran away with the machine.
In reality, it was Beatrice who came to Reuben’s party, not Forbes. This explains a lot of Forbes’ behavior like him coming up with a vague story about his job of making paper. It also explains why he didn’t want to have the cops on the scene and why he, when in Reuben’s body, tried to run away after two of their friends had died in an accident. What makes more sense is why he tried to stir chaos between the friends. It was Beatrice taking revenge for what happened all those years ago.
A Mind-Bending Swap Happens at the End
Everyone enjoys the first round of the game when they are switched into each other’s bodies and experience something they never had before. In the second round, however, things get twisted when Reuben dies in Dennis’ body, and Brooke dies in Maya’s body. This leaves Dennis and Maya with no option but to be trapped in the body of someone else for the rest of their lives, which is when the real question begins: whose body should they transfer into? More importantly, they ask why they should be the only ones to suffer that fate when everyone else played that game, too. At this point, Maya is in Shelby’s body and Dennis is in Cyrus’.
With two of their friends dead, Cyrus, who is in Forbes’ body at the time, becomes desperate to end the game and get back into his body. Nikki, who is in Brooke’s body, has the same reaction, but things are made complicated by the others. Shelby, who is in Nikki’s body, doesn’t seem too keen to leave it. She’d wanted to be like Nikki all this time and now that she finally is, she doesn’t want things to change. With two dead bodies in the house, it is also clear that they need to call the cops, but Forbes, who turned out to be Beatrice trapped in Reuben’s body, isn’t so keen on it.
Frustrated with the situation where he will be robbed of his life forever, especially when the others suggest he should go into Reuben’s body and live like him for the rest of his life, Dennis calls the cops. As Cyrus, he confesses to killing his friends, leaving the real Cyrus in a very difficult predicament. Due to his confession, if Cyrus goes back into his own body, the cops will arrest him and throw him in jail. Meanwhile, Shelby becomes more and more convinced of the fact that she doesn’t want to go back to her body. Moreover, she also becomes convinced that Cyrus never loved her and only had eyes for Nikki all this while.
In the end, Beatrice pushes everyone’s buttons in a way that she ends up getting what she wants, while the others have to live with the consequences of her actions for the rest of their lives. In the end, when the real Forbes, trapped in the body of Beatrice, comes forward, he discovers that everything has changed with his friends. By the end of the film, only Cyrus and Shelby are in each other’s bodies. Reuben and Brooke are dead in Dennis and Maya’s body. Dennis ends up in Forbes’ body, while Nikki is trapped in Reuben’s. Maya is trapped in Brooke’s body while Beatrice takes over Nikki and rides off into the sunset.
Who Has the Machine?
After Round Two, when everything goes to hell, Beatrice, in Reuben’s body, tries to escape with the machine, especially after Dennis calls the cops. She is caught and restrained, which is when she comes up with a more ingenious plan. With the cops at her doorstep, she needs a way to get away with things, but not without making it worse for the group. First, she targets Shelby, who is in Nikki’s body, seriously considering whether she should go back to her body. Beatrice advises her to do something that will test her relationship with Cyrus. At the same time, she also pushes Nikki’s buttons by telling her that Shelby plans to stay in her body. So, when the time comes to start the machine again, Nikki loses her cool, creating chaos by almost killing Shelby, which is when Beatrice does her thing.
It was most likely that Shelby wired the machine right for everyone to go back into their bodies while Dennis and Maya went into Reuben and Brooke’s. However, Nikki was too riled up to trust her, which led Beatrice to take advantage of the situation. Previously, Beatrice, in Dennis’ body, had emptied Dennis’ bank account by sending all his money to an offshore bank. Now, she had the chance to make her life even better. It wasn’t Shelby who wanted what Nikki had; it was Beatrice. So, when Nikki created chaos, Beatrice took advantage of it by mixing up the wires, leading her to end up in Nikki’s body, while Nikki got forever trapped in Reuben’s.
By the time anyone could realize what had happened, the cops arrived, putting the whole debacle to an end. Due to Dennis’ call, Cyrus is arrested for the murder of Dennis and Maya (who were actually Reuben and Brooke). While everyone else tries to make sense of things, Beatrice (in Nikki’s body) finds the opportunity to slip away with the machine, especially before Forbes (in Beatrice’s body) arrives at the house. Now, Beatrice has Dennis’ money and Nikki’s body, as well as her Instagram following. With the machine, she can now be anyone she wants, and it’s clear that she will switch bodies again. Previously, she’d talked about how the swap is addictive, that once you do it, you can’t help wanting to do it again. This means that with the machine in her hands, Beatrice is now in the wind and will most likely never be caught.
Does Cyrus go to Prison? Why Doesn’t Shelby Help Him?
While the rest of their friends are trapped in each other’s bodies, Cyrus and Shelby are the only ones who are back in their original bodies. For Cyrus, this is not good news because, due to Dennis’ call, he is now in prison for the murder of Dennis and Maya (both of whom are still alive and are in the bodies of Forbes and Brooke). Cyrus tries to convince the authorities that the death of his finds was an accident, but no one bothers to come to his defense. Nikki, in Reuben’s body, is too freaked out about how things have turned out for her. Maya, in Brooke’s body, has found a Zen and seen it as a rebirth, seemingly unconcerned with what happened to Cyrus, especially after she discovered that Cyrus made out with her while he was in Reuben’s body. Dennis is also angry with Cyrus, and now that he is trapped in Forbes’ body, he doesn’t really care for Cyrus anymore. Forbes, on the other hand, has his own things to worry about. Moreover, he wasn’t even there that night so his testimony is of no use to Cyrus anyway.
The only person who could have helped Cyrus was Shelby, but after the events at the party, even she refuses to do it anymore. When she finally shows up at the prison to meet with him, she shows such coldness towards him that he starts to wonder if it’s really Shelby or someone else in her body. In the end, however, she confirms that it is, in fact, and she also explains why she will not be helping Cyrus anymore. For the better part of the past decade, she wasted her life with Cyrus, who never truly loved her. He always had eyes for Nikki and was with Shelby only because Nikki had rejected him. At the party, even when he claimed to love and choose none other but Shelby, his lies were exposed once again. When Shelby proposed that she should stay in Nikki’s body while Cyrus takes Reuben’s, he immediately agreed, which was surprising after how much he had fought to be put back in his own body only a few minutes ago.
On top of that, he had made out with Maya when she was in Nikki’s body, confirming that it was Nikki he really wanted. Shelby is shocked when he agrees to have her in Nikki’s body for the rest of her life, that he is ready to have her spend the rest of her life in someone else’s body when mere moments ago he was strongly against it for himself. The events at the party also make Shelby realize how much she had given to her relationship with Cyrus and how little she had in return. She did not want to be that person anymore; she did not want to be in that relationship anymore. This is why, when she meets Cyrus for the last time, she calls it off. To no surprise, Cyrus still lacks self-awareness and thinks that she is acting that because of the wig incident that happened at the beginning of the story. This confirms for Shelby that he will never change, justifying his doomed fate in her eyes.
Read More: Who Dies in It’s What’s Inside?
