When Jordan Peele first came on the scene as a first time director with Get Out, no one knew what to expect. With a budget under $10M, his main cast of Daniel Kaluuya and Alison Williams were unknown in the film world. The film was a break out success, earning over $200M worldwide and receiving multiple Oscar nominations, including a Best Original Screenplay win for Jordan. Two years later, Jordan’s back with a new film, this time more horrifying than Get Out and with a well-known cast (Lupita Wyong’o, Winston Duke, and Elizabeth Duke). Will he face the sophomore slump or prove that his directing and writing skills wasn’t a fluke and he’s got more tricks up his sleeve. With ‘Us,’ Jordan has given audiences a terrifying, scary thriller filled with skilled acting, complexity, social comment, and a killer soundtrack. Outside a few holes that may requiring repeat viewings to fill in your answers, the film is first-rate entertainment to the audiences and certainly worth seeing.
Set in Santa Cruz, CA 1986 we first meet a young girl (Madison Curry) having a good time with her parents at a beach carnival. While her parents mildly argue as to who will watch the girl, she veers off towards the boardwalk before running into a house of mirrors when it starts to rain heavily. All alone inside, she can’t seem to find her way out before she’s standing in front of the mirror watching herself; but the difference is that it’s no reflection. It’s someone else with the same physical appearance.
Cut to the present day in the same city, we see a family of four, led by Nyongo’s Adelaide and Duke’s Gabe as the parents with their daughter Zora (Shadadi Wright Joseph) and son Jason (Evan Alex). Seems that Adelaide is the girl from the opening scene and flashbacks show that she was later found but may have tramautized. Her parents continue to argue but young Adelaide seems really calm. As the Wilson enter their home, Adelaide has this sick feeling that she doesn’t want to be there and refuses to go the beach to hang with their friends the Tylers (Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker) and their twin girls. After some comical twisting, she reluctantly agrees to go.
As everyone is having fun at the beach, Adelaide can’t help but think back to the past and the house of mirrors. Her nerves get really high when Jason goes missing for a few minutes. With him being found, it’s been decided to go back home. Not long after they get home and are ready for bed is when Jason tells his parents that there’s a family of four in their driveway. Seeing only figures in the dark and not responding back when Gabe asks them to leave, things escalate when this family separate to enter the house and it turns out that they are the doppelgangers of the Wilsons. Wearing red overalls, carrying big scissors, scary looking, and dangerous, this family looks to inflict harm and that’s just the least of the Wilson’s long journey for survival.
Without spoiling the rest of the film, let’s just say that Peele takes horror to uncharted territory. Scary & thought provoking, there’s plenty to grab the edge of your seats. This is the best and most we have seen Nyong’o do since she won the Oscar for ’12 Years a Slave’ and she’s flat out amazing. It’s no spoiler that she’s playing two roles, but what she does with each performance is the draw. She’s a protective mom as well as a menace. As the comic relief at times, who knew Duke had any funny bones in his system. The kids themselves were pretty impressive, especially Joseph. Jordan’s use of music is hypnotic. Amazing job on using “I Got 5 on It” by Luniz and making it a new horror theme. Not everything in the movie is great. This isn’t an A-B-C film like Get Out where plot points were easily spelled out. Here, the third act is mind boggling with a LOT packed in to digest. There are some themes without clearcut explanations, but at the same time there’s plenty going on to keep you satisfied. If Jordan Peele wants to be the Black Alfred Hitchcock with a little Stanley Kubrick mixed in, he can.
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