Us – Review

Us film review; Jordan Peele, Horror, Get OutDirected by: Jordan Peele

Runtime: 116 minutes

Us is fixated on duality. It mines the uncanny feeling of staring at your reflection and not understanding what you see for a unique tension. This latest offering from Jordan Peele, of Get Out fame, finds these dualities and enantiomorphs everywhere, from the antagonist doppelgangers to the title. He weaves these connections and segregations into a complex tapestry of metaphor and double meaning, making for an almost oxymoronic, layered, rich narrative with a clear, straightforward plot. Like Get Out, it is reserved, almost restrained, in its use of gore and shock imagery, preferring an amphorous anxiety to outright horror for most of the runtime. All this is built around the central theme of losing what you have versus taking what you want, around what Peele perhaps sees as the fundamental division: those who have and those who have not.

The story follows Adelaide Thomas (Lupita Nyong’o) and her family as they vacation at a beach house, where she had a traumatic experience as a child. Here, we go about the familiar act-one-of-a-horror-movie dance. Meeting our players, building unease, planting red herrings and Chekhov’s miscellania. However, like a good waltz, it doesn’t matter if you’ve seen the moves a hundred times if they’re well-executed by someone special. Peele excels at setup and payoff, so when the train suddenly goes off the rails with the appearance of a family of homicidal counterparts to our protagonists, every shocking encounter or close escape feels organic and earned. The film gathers momentum as it comes full circle, culminating in a return to where the story began with a twist on the plot and the Hands Across America imagery the movie opens on. Horror enthusiasts will probably see where the dominoes will fall, but the whole piece is so well crafted it detracts nothing.

The cast breathes life into every facet of the characters. A lot is being asked of Nyong’o, but she seemingly effortlessly carries a nuanced, emotive performance, as well as the narrative itself. Winston Duke as Gabe Wilson completely encapsulates a parent out of their depth and trying to hold it together. Everyone feels like a real person and special mention must be made of the child actors, who are excellent as both plucky kids on the run and menacing killer-waifs. In a departure from so many contemporary movies, Us trusts its audience. It shows rather than tells. It leaves things unsaid. It revels in a bloody recontextualisation of both charity porn visuals and its own story, which asks pointed questions about what truly separates us and where violence comes from, but does not feel the need to overburden itself with explanatory exposition. Honestly, there are wordless moans which have more emotional and narrative significance than any number of portentous monologues.

From the performances, to design (Production: Ruth De jong; Costume: Kym Barrett), to direction (Art direction: Cara Brower), there’s a real unity of vision. It all works together to make something more than the sum of its parts. There is so much going on under the hood that deserves real examination that unfortunately would require spoilers, and to paraphrase E.B. White, that kind of dissection here would kill the film. And yet, you can completely ignore the subtext and you still have a great, tense horror movie. I cannot recommend it enough.

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