something interesting i noticed watching bodies bodies bodies
i went to see the new a24 film bodies bodies bodies today, and it was a lot of fun. one thing that i was mindful of while watching it was a particular quirk of modern mystery movies that i think the filmmakers were aware of and played with. should go without saying but if you are at all planning on watching the film you should not read the rest of this post past the read more tag. however, if you don't care or already saw it, please read on.
so it's been reported on before, but there's a really silly policy that apple has that unfortunately has caused a huge problem for movies set in present day, especially movies with some sort of mystery: apple won't allow villains to use iphones. this initially wasn't a problem, since only film production people and apple employees would even know what the problem is, but now it's an open secret. it's become such a problem in fact that it has spoiled villain turns in films (that i will not name cuz spoilers).
given how much bodies bodies bodies is about gen z culture, and in particular the fact that the majority of the characters are wealthy, it stands to reason that they'd be using iphones. the protagonist, however, is a working class russian immigrant, so she uses what is clearly some sort of android phone. so if you're clued into this ridiculous apple policy, you end up spending the entire movie waiting for the villain turn of our supposed hero as the body count rises.
and yet... that doesn't happen. as the ending of the film shows, no one was truly murdered in the film. the death that kicked off the hysterics was an(extremely funny) accident. any further violence could plausibly be described as purely accidental and/or valid self-defense. in essence, when it comes to the movie mystery iphone question, the twist is that there is no twist.