The Principals:
Written
by Alexandre Bustillo. Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julian Maury. Starring Béatrice Dalle, Alysson Paradis, François-Régis Marchasson, and other folks with too many silly symbols in their names.
“But I’m not a marshmallow!”
The Premise: One bitch wants another bitch’s baby so much it hurts! So much it hurts everyone in the room. After her husband is sent away to Jesus’s living room from a car crash, a pregnant woman chills out at home. Until a mean lady shows up at the door wanting to carve the child out and have it for her own use. The result is a house filled with blood and gruesomeness and a small assortment of people in need of serious if not sorcery-infused medical attention.
Why it’s on FUCK KIDS week: Because if it weren’t for the soon to be born, all this piercing and hewing and bloodshed could have been averted. I love my kids to the point where I’d eat Bokeem Woodbine to protect them, but this flick can be metaphorically interpreted to represent the lengths people go to for their children and the sometimes blindness to the whole thing. In this case the children are the catalyst. Or the MacGuffin. Or the McMuffin. But still, these little kids are more trouble than they’re worth.
Missed Opportunity: Band-Aids goes out of business because of the events of this film.
Missed Opportunity II: The baby narrates with Bruce Willis’ voice.
‘”Yeah, I can’t explain the light source either.”
Is it Good: Good is not a word for Inside. What the fuck is happening to me is a good word for Inside. It is so brutal and bloody and mean and in love with punching taboos in the face that it’s hard to consider it good. Sometimes it’s so over the top that it’s almost funny. Sometimes the use of music or sound adds a little levity, or the bizarre moments where they cut to the child in utero getting his little form battered around from the the momtrauma keeps it from being too vicious. But good ain’t the word.
Inside is to parenting as Irreversible is to dating.
Charlotte dressed up as construction paper for Halloween.
Is it Worth a Look: Yes. If for no other reason than to have a group of people you care about over to squirm and yell at the screen and immediately buy birth control in Costco sized portions.
Random Anecdotes: If they did an American remake it’d be about two mothers vying for a parking space at Kids r’ Us and pulling each other’s hair and insulting each other’s footwear choices. There’s a point where a policeman gets brain damaged… how can you tell the difference? This movie wouldn’t happen with men. Guys, you point a knife towards his dick he’d rip his unborn and kick it through goalposts to his assailant to prevent more sadness.
At least the ending of the movie is uplifting.
Cinematic Soulmates: [Your Name]‘s Inferno. Blood in, Blood Out. To Kill a Mockingbird Everyone Who Shows Up At The Pregnant Bitch’s House.
Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna got weird in their later years.