Us (2019)

SHORT SPOILER FREE VERSION:

This movie was Peele's follow up to Oscar Winning horror Get Out, a very difficult act to follow, yet miraculously he did not disappoint, this time utilising more traditional horror elements. The premise follows the Wilson family, mother and father Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and Gabe (Winston Duke) and their children Jason (Evan Alex) and Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), visiting Santa Cruz for a summer holiday, a place Adelaide has haunting memories of when she encountered a doppleganger version of herself. Now that she's back, more and more coincidences are happening and that evening the family's holiday home is attacked by bizzare parallel versions of them armed with golden scissors. It's a fight for survival. Peele sets up the family dynamic as a unit and individually to an excellent degree through use very authentic dialogue which is able to communicate so much to the audience (most notably at the dinner table) making our engagement with them through the events to come more personal and relatable. The acting from the family and their doppleganger is superb at worst, with Lupita Nyong'o giving a performance worthy of goosebumps and dare I say Oscars. Peele nails tension to a Hitchcock level and accompanies it with surreal visual sequences and perfect use of lighting to keep the audience trying to drag their eyes away in terror... but incapable of doing so. All of this sewn together with a kniving score that echoes in your head all night curtorsey of Michael Abels. Peele is revered for his sociopolitical commentary in both his comedy and horror with Us being no different, making comments on class divide and priveldge through every microscopic detail and easter egg and generally themes of duality.

In conclusion Peele is back with another instant horror classic despite having a lot to live up to. The film is tense, satisftying, perceptive and engaging through out, culminating in a cinematic horror triumph that will go down in history.

SPOILER VERSION AND ANALYSIS:

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown; these are the famous words uttered by legendary horror writer H.P Lovecraft and never was a truer word spoken. Jordan Peele is a director who understands this and so this film was incredibly ambiguous, and that's what made it spectacular. Peele had his breakout hit with 2016's Get Out and won an Oscar for best original screenplay with a piece of horror that is already a classic after 2 years. Following this up would be a sysaphyian task, but Peele broke the director's curse and did not fail in making a film smoothie that felt fresh and wholly original and familiar at once, utilising more traditional elements of horror with dash of Peele's past in comedy.

The plot follows the Wilson family, mother and father Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and Gabe (Winston Duke) and there children Jason (Evan Alex) and Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), visiting Santa Cruz for a summer holiday, a place Adelaide has haunting memories of when she encountered a doppleganger version of herself. Peele sets up the family dynamic as a unit and individually to an excellent degree through use very authentic dialogue which is able to communicate so much to the audience most notably at the dinner table, making our engagement with them throughout the events to come personal and relatable. After a reluctant visit to the Santa Cruz bay the Wilson's holiday home is invaded by terrifying versions of them clad with red jump suits, leather glovers and armed with golden scissors. These dopplegangers known as Tethered (since they are tethered to mimicking their human counterparts), act as foils to the family. For example Wilson's; joke cracking and silly Gabe's doppleganger is an emotionless brute, illogical and unmoved. Anxious and emotionally engrossing/engrossed Adelaide is countered by an intelligent, relentless and ruthless version of her with a bone griding voice. This allows for incredibly satisfying character development all round and made every kill of a Tethred feel like a resounding, satisfying success. The horror itself is often left to the imagination and plays out like careful brush strokes on a beautiful painting.

The performances from the family and their Tethered counterparts are superb at worst. Let's be honest, everyone from your friends, to your pets, to your grandma, to your Tethered doppleganger know about Lupita Nyong'o's ridiculously incredible performance which was worthy of both goosebumps and dare I say an Oscar. Peele nails tension to a Hitchcock level and accompanies it with surreal visual sequences (like in the mirror maze and tunnels) and perfect use of lighting (particularly in the first encounter of the Tethered family, through the fireplace and Red's face being an uncomfortable argent) to keep the audience trying to drag their eyes away in terror but incapable of doing so. The score ties the movie together with kniving scores that echoes in your head all night curtorsey of Michael Abels. The film culminates in a final battle sequence between Red and Adelaide which is electrifying thanks to ruthlessly excellent editing and coreography making the build up a wait worth while and intense. Peele uses silence for suspense and makes his audience anxious with short breaks from tension.

Peele is famed for his sociopolitical commentary, with Get Out posing a philosophy of liberal racism and Us focusing on the horrors of privilege in the US (see what he did there). This duality is seen throughout the film and challenges/explores the narrow minded concept of an "other" in America; a looming threat to society, yet at the end of the day, it is us who are the threat. Every frame of the film is like an ocean of details and easter eggs all carefully constructed into Peele's philosophies on political correctness, privledge, and class divide, with too many to go through. The family are disillusioned from both steretypical white and black culture, as shown by the family interaction over the song I Got 5 On It. The purpose of "Hands Across America" was to show society actually taking a stand against an issue and threat like homelessness yet ultimately doing nothing about the problem since we are too comfortable in our privledge to act. This theme of priveldge is the key to Us with the humans being this privledged group when compared to the Tethered (who are that "other" group) and the only way privledge is at the expense of a lower class and the only was for equality has to be at the expense of that privledged group. The city of California itself mirrors the surface world and the Tethered world; a world of privledge (Beverly Hills) and the culture that it is at the expense of (Compton). This is to overall mirror the juxtaposition and duality of the USAmerican Dream. This is seen through the juxtaposition of Jason's tuxedo tshirt and Gabe's Howard University sweatshirt and how Red says "We are Americans" showing that they are not evil or different, but a part of society. These ideas of mirroring is seen the literal use of mirrors throughout. Jordan Peele has stated that Us is not about race, unlike Get Out, but rather uses race to explore the ideas of privledge, contrast and the American Dream. The fact that Adelaide is actually Red and Red is the real Adelaide, yet we support Adelaide until the end shows our views are easily obstructed by society, furthermore it shows that if we were born to a different family our lives could pan out very differently.

To call back to the start, HP Lovecraft has gone down in both horror and universal history and Peele is already no different. It's another instant horror classic, an intelligent, thorough, engaging, alarming and tense movie from start to finish resulting in a flawless piece of cinematic horror triumph that will go down in history.