Everyone loved Jordan Peele's Get Out. It made a ton of money when it wasn't supposed to, established Jordan Peele as one of Hollywood's big time directors, and it even got a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars. It was the kind of film that so many people talked about and got such a cultural buzz swirling around it that if you didn't like it or didn't get it or thought that it was overrated...well, you probably kept your mouth shut. But let's face it: Get Out was overrated. It wasn't a terrible picture. It was an interesting, current twist on The Stepford Wives. It was Peele's first film as a writer/director, so Get Out's problems can be overlooked. It was an okay film but it fell short in a lot of categories, like the undecided comedy/horror of it that never fit to the rushed, gory ending that would have been better drawn out. Get Out is already a cultural touchstone, so breaking it's balls is akin to shouting for help in an empty forest. But Peele's latest picture is out, titled Us, and it has yet to emerge in the zeitgeist and garner a place. I'm here to let you know that Peele is, apparently, stuck doing horror movies with a sociological slant for the rest of time. And Us may just get as much notoriety and love and buzz as Get Out because it's very similar, but I doubt it. Us is a movie where a writer/director has carte blanche. Peele could have done whatever the heck he wanted to after the success of Get Out. And it shows in both bad and good ways. Us is a bit darker, serious, and more bloodthirstily sadistic than Get Out. There's less comedy, the film looks terrific, but it's also the type of film that probably needed someone to edit Peele's screenplay or, at the very least, ask pertinent questions and be given substantial answers.
The story has a family going to their vacation home in California. They drive a boat, hit the beach, hang out with another family. It's the perfect life! But then a strange family shows up in their driveway holding hands and not moving. Okay. So scary! And then the shit hits the fan when this strange family decides to kill them. Then it's hunt-and-chase-and-kill for an hour until the credits hit. The strange, murderous family turn out to be doppelgangers. Lupita Nyong'o is the mother, Winston Duke is the father, Shahadi Wright Joseph is the daughter, and Evan Alex is the son. All four of them also play their doppelgangers, which works, thanks to the doppelgangers being either masked or hidden in shadow most of the time. And if you think there's more to this movie than wouldn't-it-be-scary-if-your-evil-twin-showed-up-to-kill-you then you wouldn't be wrong exactly, though the film would probably be better if it didn't attempt to make it more about that. Get Out was a horror movie but also tried to say something about white liberalism and black life in modern times. Us is, I guess, supposed to be about class difference and the 1% in the U.S., hence the title. We all have a dark part of ourselves, even our country! The doppelgangers come from an underground bunker below the beach in Santa Cruz. Where did they come from? It's slightly hinted at that it was some sort of experiment, but even that feels like a lame cop-out since nothing is explained nor even really attempted to explain. Everyone just has an evil twin underground, okay? And they're not really evil, they're just pissed off that they're underground and their life sucks while their other self is up on the surface living it up on the beach. Kind of like the upper class vs. working poor? I guess that's the intent, although who the fuck knows what that's even supposed to mean amidst a horror movie/thriller or if it's supposed to be revelatory.
The best part of the film, and, really, the only part that matters, is the hunting-and-killing horror aspect of it all. A lot of it reminded me of The Strangers. In that film, strangers show up at a house to kill people for no reason and it's full of action and suspense without answers. Us has some exciting sequences. We get chases and a fight on a boat and the family driving away in a car with a killer on the roof. The film isn't particular scary, although it's creepy in part, well shot and looks terrific. Lupita Nyong'o gives a good performance as both sides of the coin and Elisabeth Moss is great as a short-lived, vain Real Housewives type of character. I think one huge problem with the film is that the entire time you're waiting for answers or a great, final reveal. There is a twist at the end that's fairly obvious, but no answers to the big questions are revealed. Who are these doppelgangers? At least say they're from another dimension or alternate universe like they do in the comic books (Peele definitely reads comic books, as DC's Forever Evil is very similar to Us, as is the current Batman Who Laughs doppelganger storyline). And why are the doppelgangers holding hands across America like that dumb 1980's charity event? And why did they ruin the big fight scene at the end with awkward cuts away to Nyongo's character ballet dancing? And the rabbits?
I'm sure moviegoers will be just as baffled as me at this film in a way that moviegoers weren't with Get Out. That film may have had an obvious, societal critique undertone but at least casual people watching it got it and could enjoy it. I'm not sure anyone will enjoy watching Us in a way that they did Get Out, which is why that made a boatload of cash and Us probably won't after it's first weekend.
Whatever Peele is trying to say with Us, it never reveals itself. Yep, the 1% rules in America. We know this. Everyone knows this. Are you just using a horror film to state a fact? Perhaps it'd be best for Peele to just make a straight up horror movie, forget the ridiculous symbolism that goes nowhere, get a co-writer so your films aren't half-baked, and finally make the masterpiece you're definitely capable of. **
