Us (2019)
Rated R for violence/terror, and language
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Score: 4 out of 5
So... this movie was a lot to unpack. It's a film where, if I see it again, I imagine that my final score of 4 out of 5 will likely change, and probably for the better, such was the number of levels that this film is working on. On the surface, it bears many similarities to Jordan Peele's previous film, the outstanding Get Out: both are tales about black people thrust into dead-serious horror movie scenarios (albeit with a streak of pitch-dark humor that Peele's been refining since his days making straight comedy on TV) that come loaded with social and cultural commentary and satire of American life. Dig deeper, however, and you'll find a very different beast, especially once you look into the mechanisms of the plot. While the protagonists are black, that fact is only incidental this time around, the film setting its sights elsewhere for its satirical targets and refusing to spell things out the way its predecessor did. I mentioned in my review of Get Out that that film fit very well into the 2010s "post-horror" mold of films that used horror movie premises as the basis for tackling weightier themes, often relying heavily on metaphor and "nothing is scarier" to allude to things rather than showing them up front, and if anything, this film sees Peele leaning even further in that direction, grabbing an all-star cast to make a violent, R-rated horror film about -- without spoiling anything -- classism and American society tearing itself apart. (I think. I've seen all sorts of theories about what this movie's about, from both people who thought it was amazing and those who thought it was a waste of time, the last bit being the ultimate mark of a post-horror movie that did its job; they're usually polarizing.) Either way, Us is an utterly mad, brutal, and daringly original horror movie that, while highly distinct from Get Out, still showcases Peele's greatest strengths as a horror filmmaker while giving you something to chew on and discuss with your friends as you ride home.
Things seem simple at first. Our main characters are the Wilsons, a wealthy family vacationing in Santa Cruz, California composed of the mother Adelaide, the father Gabe, the teenage daughter Zora, and the adolescent son Jason. Adelaide is reluctant to return to Santa Cruz following an experience as a child where, after wandering into an empty "haunted maze" attraction on the beach, she ran into a girl who looked exactly like her. Sure enough, one night while staying in their lakehouse, they are greeted by a family of four who look exactly like them, but are immediately distinguished by their red jumpsuits, fingerless gloves, sharp golden scissors, feral behavior, and desire to murder them.
It only gets crazier from there. This film takes what would likely be the main plot of the more conventional version of this film, one about the family fighting for survival against a home invasion carried out by their own doppelgangers, and wraps it up in about thirty minutes before making it clear that it has much bigger ideas on its mind. The very idea of the villains by itself is creepy and original: people who look exactly like you and your loved ones, coming to kill you and steal your lives. Adelaide's doppelganger, going by the name Red and the only one capable of speaking (albeit in an extremely raspy manner), delivers to her and her family a chilling speech to this effect, seemingly blaming them for all manner of suffering that she and her own family went through. Even after the finale answers many, but not all, of the questions regarding just what the "Tethered" actually are, they still feel like an evil force that just should not be, their mannerisms coming across as warped, degenerated parodies of the people they're crudely imitating. I knew immediately, just from how distinct they are right away, that the Tethered were going to be memed and parodied to hell and back, but that doesn't make them any less scary, either in terms of in-your-face immediacy or in terms of the existential horror that they represent -- one of the few times when explaining the monster doesn't completely ruin its mystique, though it helps that Peele, despite having everything about them in mind as he wrote the film, only revealed just enough to raise more questions.
The monsters, however, needed great actors to bring them to life, in terms of both them and the "normal" people that they serve as a counterpoint to. And it's hard to do better than the cast that we got. To start, Winston Duke plays Gabe not as a horror movie dad like Patrick Wilson in Insidious, but as a goofy sitcom dad, at least at first, eager to take his family to the beach and show off the frankly unimpressive, rust-bucket boat he bought for the lake. His character is somebody who one could easily see having been played by Tim Allen, Kevin James, (post-gangsta) Ice Cube, or (pre-scandal) Bill Cosby, a jovial fellow who tries to whitewash the fact that all of his favorite classic hip-hop songs are about smoking pot -- and a sharp contrast to his animalistic double Abraham, who vocalizes purely in caveman-like grunts, screams, and bellows. Tim Heidecker (of Tim & Eric fame) and Elisabeth Moss play Josh and Kitty Tyler, friends of the Wilsons who are also on vacation, and while I can't really say much about their role in the story, I can say that I was impressed with them, especially Moss, as they get dragged into the Wilsons' fight for survival. One scene in particular involving Kitty served as a picture-perfect showcase of Peele at his best, blending the chilling horror of a home invasion with dark comedy involving a technology mishap and a downright brutal song choice. And I found myself quite enjoying the presence of the kids, with Shahadi Wright Joseph playing both Zora as a smart-aleck Daria Morgendorffer type and her Tethered twin Umbrae as a psycho with a slasher smile, and Evan Alex playing Jason as a weird kid with a dark side who frequently wears a Halloween mask and his Tethered twin Pluto as the token non-evil person among them.
But the real standout was, without question, Lupita Nyong'o as both the matriarch Adelaide and her Tethered twin Red. She carries the entire film on her shoulders, not merely playing the equivalent of both Laurie Strode and Michael Myers but also, without spoiling anything, sitting at the core of the film's themes about how upbringing can shape people's identities, worldviews, and even basic personalities. Throughout the film, and especially in their final confrontation, we are shown that Adelaide and Red, despite clearly being biologically identical, are also polar opposites of one another -- yet eerily similar in ways that run to the heart of who they are. Nyong'o is outstanding as the both of them, crafting both a compelling and multi-layered protagonist on one hand and a truly memorable and wrathful villain on the other, both characters springing to life almost from the moment we're introduced to each of them. Nyong'o's dual performance is practically Oscar-worthy, and while I'd normally say that that would probably never happen given how the Academy so rarely recognizes horror films, the fact that Get Out was not only nominated for its screenplay but won outright leads me to say "never say never".
Peele's direction once more treads a fine line between horror and comedy, leaning clearly towards the former but, much like Scream, having a very clear streak of humor to it. Gabe's corny dad-ness, Josh and Kitty's Alexa-esque AI home assistant, and numerous bits of dialogue all spice up the film from start to finish, providing both levity and moments that feel like levity until you realize that they only spotlight the terrible circumstances in which the characters are trapped. Make no mistake: much like Get Out, this is not a comedy, even with its funny moments. Peele's direction is old-school horror filmmaking, fused with an outstanding score and song selection that ratchets up the stakes of the situation over the course of the film. This is especially so when paired with a script that is both straightforward enough on a surface level to take it at face value as a "body snatcher"-style chiller and multilayered enough under the hood that, the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated what it was trying to say. While Get Out was up front with its metaphors about casual racism and cultural appropriation, the added depth being in finding the numerous ways in which it ties those subjects to its villains' plot, the message of Us is not readily apparent at face value, and indeed, it's tackling far more subjects than its predecessor did. There are many ways in which the story can be read: as a metaphor for our darkest urges, for the debate over nature vs. nurture (and, by extension, how people raised in poverty are often trapped in vicious cycles of such), and for how we and the government treat the poor and non-white. Once again, no spoilers, but none of these interpretations are mutually exclusive -- while there are many valid ways to take in, think about, and discuss the movie, nearly all of them track back to a broader message about a society that seems at war with itself, as manifested in a family attacked by their evil doubles.
Things seem simple at first. Our main characters are the Wilsons, a wealthy family vacationing in Santa Cruz, California composed of the mother Adelaide, the father Gabe, the teenage daughter Zora, and the adolescent son Jason. Adelaide is reluctant to return to Santa Cruz following an experience as a child where, after wandering into an empty "haunted maze" attraction on the beach, she ran into a girl who looked exactly like her. Sure enough, one night while staying in their lakehouse, they are greeted by a family of four who look exactly like them, but are immediately distinguished by their red jumpsuits, fingerless gloves, sharp golden scissors, feral behavior, and desire to murder them.
It only gets crazier from there. This film takes what would likely be the main plot of the more conventional version of this film, one about the family fighting for survival against a home invasion carried out by their own doppelgangers, and wraps it up in about thirty minutes before making it clear that it has much bigger ideas on its mind. The very idea of the villains by itself is creepy and original: people who look exactly like you and your loved ones, coming to kill you and steal your lives. Adelaide's doppelganger, going by the name Red and the only one capable of speaking (albeit in an extremely raspy manner), delivers to her and her family a chilling speech to this effect, seemingly blaming them for all manner of suffering that she and her own family went through. Even after the finale answers many, but not all, of the questions regarding just what the "Tethered" actually are, they still feel like an evil force that just should not be, their mannerisms coming across as warped, degenerated parodies of the people they're crudely imitating. I knew immediately, just from how distinct they are right away, that the Tethered were going to be memed and parodied to hell and back, but that doesn't make them any less scary, either in terms of in-your-face immediacy or in terms of the existential horror that they represent -- one of the few times when explaining the monster doesn't completely ruin its mystique, though it helps that Peele, despite having everything about them in mind as he wrote the film, only revealed just enough to raise more questions.
The monsters, however, needed great actors to bring them to life, in terms of both them and the "normal" people that they serve as a counterpoint to. And it's hard to do better than the cast that we got. To start, Winston Duke plays Gabe not as a horror movie dad like Patrick Wilson in Insidious, but as a goofy sitcom dad, at least at first, eager to take his family to the beach and show off the frankly unimpressive, rust-bucket boat he bought for the lake. His character is somebody who one could easily see having been played by Tim Allen, Kevin James, (post-gangsta) Ice Cube, or (pre-scandal) Bill Cosby, a jovial fellow who tries to whitewash the fact that all of his favorite classic hip-hop songs are about smoking pot -- and a sharp contrast to his animalistic double Abraham, who vocalizes purely in caveman-like grunts, screams, and bellows. Tim Heidecker (of Tim & Eric fame) and Elisabeth Moss play Josh and Kitty Tyler, friends of the Wilsons who are also on vacation, and while I can't really say much about their role in the story, I can say that I was impressed with them, especially Moss, as they get dragged into the Wilsons' fight for survival. One scene in particular involving Kitty served as a picture-perfect showcase of Peele at his best, blending the chilling horror of a home invasion with dark comedy involving a technology mishap and a downright brutal song choice. And I found myself quite enjoying the presence of the kids, with Shahadi Wright Joseph playing both Zora as a smart-aleck Daria Morgendorffer type and her Tethered twin Umbrae as a psycho with a slasher smile, and Evan Alex playing Jason as a weird kid with a dark side who frequently wears a Halloween mask and his Tethered twin Pluto as the token non-evil person among them.
But the real standout was, without question, Lupita Nyong'o as both the matriarch Adelaide and her Tethered twin Red. She carries the entire film on her shoulders, not merely playing the equivalent of both Laurie Strode and Michael Myers but also, without spoiling anything, sitting at the core of the film's themes about how upbringing can shape people's identities, worldviews, and even basic personalities. Throughout the film, and especially in their final confrontation, we are shown that Adelaide and Red, despite clearly being biologically identical, are also polar opposites of one another -- yet eerily similar in ways that run to the heart of who they are. Nyong'o is outstanding as the both of them, crafting both a compelling and multi-layered protagonist on one hand and a truly memorable and wrathful villain on the other, both characters springing to life almost from the moment we're introduced to each of them. Nyong'o's dual performance is practically Oscar-worthy, and while I'd normally say that that would probably never happen given how the Academy so rarely recognizes horror films, the fact that Get Out was not only nominated for its screenplay but won outright leads me to say "never say never".
Peele's direction once more treads a fine line between horror and comedy, leaning clearly towards the former but, much like Scream, having a very clear streak of humor to it. Gabe's corny dad-ness, Josh and Kitty's Alexa-esque AI home assistant, and numerous bits of dialogue all spice up the film from start to finish, providing both levity and moments that feel like levity until you realize that they only spotlight the terrible circumstances in which the characters are trapped. Make no mistake: much like Get Out, this is not a comedy, even with its funny moments. Peele's direction is old-school horror filmmaking, fused with an outstanding score and song selection that ratchets up the stakes of the situation over the course of the film. This is especially so when paired with a script that is both straightforward enough on a surface level to take it at face value as a "body snatcher"-style chiller and multilayered enough under the hood that, the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated what it was trying to say. While Get Out was up front with its metaphors about casual racism and cultural appropriation, the added depth being in finding the numerous ways in which it ties those subjects to its villains' plot, the message of Us is not readily apparent at face value, and indeed, it's tackling far more subjects than its predecessor did. There are many ways in which the story can be read: as a metaphor for our darkest urges, for the debate over nature vs. nurture (and, by extension, how people raised in poverty are often trapped in vicious cycles of such), and for how we and the government treat the poor and non-white. Once again, no spoilers, but none of these interpretations are mutually exclusive -- while there are many valid ways to take in, think about, and discuss the movie, nearly all of them track back to a broader message about a society that seems at war with itself, as manifested in a family attacked by their evil doubles.
The Bottom Line
There's a lot to think about here, but even if you choose to enjoy this as just a home invasion horror flick, this is still a great movie that proves that Get Out was not a fluke. See it, if only so I can safely discuss what the hell happened.
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