How do you follow up a movie
like Get Out? The
short answer: you don’t. Jordan Peele’s debut horror film was such a uniquely
singular cultural phenomenon that only happens when the stars line up just
right that even the Oscars had to put their biases aside and give it the
recognition. Naturally, whatever he came up with next would be anticipated with
baited breath, and even Peele knows that anything he makes probably won’t live
up to the hype, even if it’s good. Comparing Us to Get Out would be an
uphill battle, especially since they’re so monumentally different, and since Us
aims to cast a wider net than the more singular endeavors of its predecessor.
Our story follows Adelaide
Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) as she, her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their kids
Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) start their vacation in
Santa Cruz. At first it seems like a few weeks of beaches, boat rides and
catching up with old friends (Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker), but Adelaide
isn’t in the relaxing mood since she had a traumatic experience there as a
child and coming back has unearthed some bad memories. The day goes from bad to
worse when four mysterious figures show up out of nowhere, break into their
house and terrorize their family. The creepiness factor is intensified when
it’s revealed that these invaders are exact doppelgangers of the family, who
call themselves “The Tethered”. Now it’s a fight for survival as the family has
to think on their feet to best their duplicates, figure out who they are, where
they came from, why they’re after them, and how to defeat them.
Since it’s going to be nearly
impossible to avoid, I might as well nip this in the bud upfront: No, Us is not as good as Get Out, but aside from having the same
writer and director and being in the same genre, the two are quite different.
But the biggest difference is that while Get
Out was explicitly about one thing, Us
is more open to interpretation. There’s a plethora of loaded imagery, symbolism
and foreshadowing that practically dares you to decode it. I’ve heard some
people say it’s a metaphor for Jung’s concept of the shadow-self, I’ve heard
others say it’s symbolic of the increasing division and distrust among American
citizens in the wake of the Trump's election, others say it’s about income inequality, and I’m sure all those
“Ending Explained” channels on YouTube will miss the forest for the trees by trying
to come up with literal answers for the origins of the Tethered. Just know that
the movie runs on dream logic, some details are left vague on purpose and that
trying to play detective and predict everything before it happens takes away
from the fun. Good? Good.
Us is a
veritable patchwork of other works, but finds way to take those elements and
make them its own. One can see traces of The
Strangers, Funny Games, and even Scream
woven throughout, but it really plays out like an episode of The Twilight Zone: presenting a bizarre
but easy to grasp premise, dragging the audience along before completely
flipping itself on its head in a way that recontextualizes everything you just
saw. (Jordan Peele, who’s also hosting the upcoming reboot of the series, even admits
the
premise was inspired by a Twilight Zone
episode.) Although it’s a horror movie at its core, this is yet
another showcase of Peele’s extraordinary ability to balance horror and comedy.
He’s exceptionally skilled at breaking up transitioning between the two and
injecting jokes into suspenseful moments without it feeling jarring. We spend
the first half hour just watching the family being a family, with all the little
moments added to give a sense of humanity, then watch helplessly as they’re
thrust in a situation where they have to think on their feet and confront their
darkest selves if they want to make it out in one piece. And just when you
think that this is an isolated incident, the camera pulls back to show that the
scope of it is much greater than expected.
What really brings it all
together, though, are the performances. Our four main leads pull double duty as
the terrorized family and their haunting duplicates, and they each pass with
flying colors. Winston Duke gets plenty of laughs as the endearing but
irrepressibly corny dad, but is menacing as his nearly silent, lumbering
homunculus. Evan Alex plays off well will himself as a masked wild boy, using a
game they end up playing as a means of defeating him. But the greatest performance
in this movie hands-down goes to Lupita Nyong’o, who arguably gives one of the
best performances in any horror movie period. As both the protective,
traumatized mother and the sinister manifestation of said trauma, she’s
basically asked to play both Michael Myers and Laurie at the same time.
Bottom line, Us is a magnificent triumph. If Get Out showed us that Jordan Peele has
a massive amount of potential, then Us
is the film that cements him as one of the moment unique voices in horror
today. It’s a bit rough around the edges and some people will probably have a
bone to pick with its core premise not holding up if you think about it too
logically, but doing so would be missing the forest for the trees, especially
when it’s to be expected when dealing with something of this scale. As it is,
it hits all the right notes, and cements itself as the best film currently in
theaters.
8/10
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