Review: Bo Burnham's Inside

Bo Burnham's Inside (2021): Written, directed, edited, and starred in by Bo Burnham. Running Time: 87 Minutes, or Forever.

Rating: 3.5/4

        Within the first ten minutes of Bo Burnham's new....whatever it is, I found myself texting the friend who'd recommended it to me, angrily demanding to know who'd given Burnham permission to mine the deepest fears and insecurities tucked away in the recesses of my lizard brain and put them on display for all the world to see. I felt as naked as Burnham actually becomes over the course of Inside, a combination of movie, stand-up/musical comedy, one-man-show, and a whole bunch of other stuff that has become quite the sensation since it was released by Netflix at the end of May.

        However you want to classify it, it hit me like a ton of bricks, especially since the past few years have forced me and my generation to have a whole lot of painful reckonings regarding the uglier contours of modern internet culture and the limitations of admiring artists as people. Inside is, on the surface, primarily intended as a commentary and homemade documentary on the COVID-19 pandemic and the general shitstorm that was 2020. And on that basis alone, it acts as an invaluable time capsule. But when it's at its most profound, it reaches far beyond those thematic walls to provide a scarily accurate, and often truly devastating, glimpse into the destructive cycles of internet fandom and what it feels like to face the pressures and demands of being a "content creator."

        The very first song, which acts as the opening scene, is a prime example of this. The lyrics are a litany of apologies, begging his audience's forgiveness for being behind schedule, for his absence, for "looking like a mess" (though frankly, I think Burnham absolutely rocks the long hair and beard), and even for the mere fact of having depression. It's been rough and there's a global pandemic killing millions, but hey! Here's the content you wanted! I pulled my shit together and did it! Aren't you satisfied?

        Every part of it- the (literally) dazzling light display, the melody designed to worm its way into the brain and never leave, the self-aware apologizing, even the literal infantilization of the audience ("Daddy made your favorite!")- encapsulates so much of the worst of internet fandom and the co-dependencies that have often led both creators and fans down some pretty dark and depressing paths.

        Aside from more light-hearted ("White Women's Instagram") or oddball (JEFFREY BEZOS) moments, this was the emotional thoughline that, for me, defined the very singular viewing experience that is Inside. It's an almost Heart-Of-Darkness-esque descent into madness. Burnham is trying to create as many musically and visually interestings songs as he can, and he very much suceeds in that; given that we know he produced this entirely on his own, the litany of effects he throws up using lights, cameras, and various perspectives within the same four walls is jaw-dropping to behold. At the same time, though, the combined stress of trying to deliver that sweet, sweet content he's being paid for while also worrying that if he goes outside, he could literally get sick and die wears him down as both the production and the pandemic drag on and on. And we see it, or at least part of it, and that's part of the gimmick; we aren't just seeing the finished products, we're also getting "making-of" snippets in between the songs, including a few direct remarks from Burnham on his mental and physical state at specific points of the project. Spoiler; by the end, it's not good.

        And it's here where most of the criticism, some of it certainly merited, of Inside comes into play; we're watching a special by a famous white man that was paid for and is being distributed by one of the biggest media and content providers in the world. Erego, there's a debate to be had at how, well, authentic these peek-behind-the-curtain moments actually are. Burnham has gone on record before about having panic attacks on stage and struggling with various aspects of his mental health, so it's eminently believable that scenes of him expressing of real despair over the special and his career in general, up to and including musings over suicide, were genuine. BUT, he's still getting paid to show these moments to the world, so even if they are "real," does him monetizing and marketing it negate that in some way and make it more of a construct?

        That brings us to the crux of the argument and that poisoned chalice of a word, "authenticity," and I think this is where the heart of what Inside is getting at truly lies. Burnham is effectively revealing- possible without even consciously intending it- that whether or not any part of the special is "real" or "authentic" doesn't matter, because in the Age of the Internet, where everything is online and every aspect of our lives is mineable as content, everything in our lives is ultimately a construct and, erego, nothing is authentic. And if you want to actually engage with the "real world" and seperate yourself from the digital rat race? Well, that could literally kill you, so it's best to just stay inside.

        In the wake of some of the scandals and abuse and Twitter wars that have sprung up around and between all sorts of internet celebrities over the past few years, there has been a lot of interesting and thought-provoking work by figures like Lindsay Ellis, Sarah Z, and Natalie Wynn/Contrapoints, among many, many others, grappling with this very concept. Social constructions and manufactured "authenticity" are nothing new- any historian would argue it's existed as long as human civilization has- but there are specific ways in which the internet has made the potential downsides of these kinds of dynamics particularly far-reaching and harmful, for both the content creators themselves and us, the consumers of said content. With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging as of this writing and climate change, political extremism, and income inequality only growing as pressing global problems, these debates over what we value, how we decide between what's real and what's not, and even how we treat one another on a basic, human level will only become more consequential. The stakes literally could not be higher.

        Even though that sort of awareness is important, though, the fact that audiences have started to demand 360-degree self-awareness about all possible negative interpretations of ones' work never actually seems to leave anyone satisfied, or at least not those of us who just want to be trolls and cause trouble. Here, too, Inside is working overtime to try and do several things at once. A common sequence is for Burnham to start off with a joke, only to immediately "apologize" for the joke being privileged or "problematic," only to then turn around and deconstruct his apology as a construct of its own, a ploy to beat the internet at its own game and still come out ahead (while also remaining the center of attention and getting paid). It's an incredibly intricate web that he tries to weave and it probably reaches its height with the commentary-within-commentary-within-commentary sequence he does after "Unpaid Intern," which that takes the growing popularity of self-commentary videos to an absolutely hellish conclusion.

        These efforts don't always land, though, and at its weakest moments feel more forced than insightful. However, this is one of those works where even the flaws only make the whole more fascinating and compelling to me. Burnham is trying to do everything at once, and, as he himseslf points out repeatedly, he obviously falls short because NO individual can do and be everything the internet culture demands. You have to draw the line somewhere or inevitably be broken by the process. And it's the interplay between those cruel, self-defeating expectations and sheer sensory overload that Inside captures better than most recent works I've seen, whether with the showstopping number "Welcome to the Internet" (with the immortal line "A little bit of everything, all of the time"), or a brief moment of him playing a typical YouTuber asking with a painfully-forced smile for Likes while weilding a massive knife.

        As the film goes on (yes, for my purposes, I am defining it as a film, bite me), the lighting and tone gets darkers and darker. Burnham appears more and more unkempt and less and less clothed until he sits, literally naked, with a cold blue light shining on him. Yes, the pandemic has forced him away from plans to return to the stage and resulted in his crafting this work, alone, with no audience. But frankly, that's what all internet personalities have been doing for the past 15+ years- working long hours in isolation, simultaneously hoping against hope that people will like what they do while terrified that they won't, and that one slip up could end it all. Even when if you know the dynamic isn't good for you and maybe not even what you want anymore, once you're in, you feel like there's no escape and no way out. You're stuck in the rising water, insisting that it's all fine, hands up in the air, demanding that all eyes stay on you.

        Be very, very careful what you wish for, I guess. Now open wide.

-Noah Franc