Us = Despair
Room for Interpretation
Jordan Peele blindsided many with 2017’s Get Out, a film as prescient in its sociopolitical themes as it was in the assured execution of its macabre elements. From the dialog to the character development to the escalation of tension, I didn’t anticipate the effect of what he ultimately delivered (ditto the corresponding box office success, which reinforced horror’s status as an eminently profitable genre).
Three viewings later, and I find myself picking up on subtle details that make it an even more enriching experience. The films I like most are those that leave room for interpretation, and Get Out is a prime example.
In 2019, all eyes were on Peele’s grand return – to both cinema (Us) and television (a new iteration of The Twilight Zone, which premiered on April 1).
Hall of Mirrors
My expectations were carefully calibrated to not pre-emptively escalate Peele’s sophomore effort to an unrealistic place. I went out of my way to avoid trailers, images, and pre-release-hype articles (a Sisyphean ordeal, my friends).
I didn’t want another Get Out – I just wanted a decent movie.
So, to get the grand reveal out of the way – drumroll please, “too long; didni’t read” and all that – Us isn’t a good movie.
That said, it isloaded with indelible images (all beautifully captured by cinematographer Michael Gioulakis) and a compelling use of sound. For a while, suspense and a general sense of disorientation is present and accounted for. The lead performance by Lupita Nyong’o is consistently excellent, even when the film betrays her efforts in the later going.
If there’s something encouraging about its weighty, $70-million opening-weekend box office, it’s that Peele can go and make something (hopefully) better after this.
Whereas Get Out was a model of efficiency in its storytelling, Us feels overwritten to an almost obsessive-compulsive degree. It sets up a lot of dominoes, knocks over a few, and maintains enough interest before wandering off into a literal and figurative hall of mirrors. During its one-layer-on-top-of-another final act, I concluded that Peele had written himself into a corner, and couldn’t come up with a sturdy enough justification for the weirdness he had just perpetrated.
Chaotic Aesthetic
At 2 hours, Us is just too much. It’s one of those movies that frustrates because the promise of its build-up goes unmatched by its climactic payoff and overall thematic indecision.
There are things to be picked apart and analyzed here, which more charitable reviewers have already done. But when NWA’s “Fuck Tha Police” was used as a comedic underscore to a scene that wasn’t intended to be ha-ha funny (I don’t think so, anyway), a certain sinking feeling grew in my guts, and went on to throb like the chestburster in Alien, until the end credits rolled.
There’s a self-conscious uncertainty permeating Us, and not in the good, paranoid Invasion of the Body Snatchers sense.
With someone like the late Tobe Hooper, chaos (both in front of and behind the camera) was part of his overall aesthetic. The bombastic likes of Lifeforce, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Mangler – to name a few – portended greater hypotheses on the politics and social concerns of their times. Peele, a filmmaker whose aesthetic is cleaner and certainly more audience-friendly, employs chaos as a narrative device, but the gesture comes across more as desperation than depth – the fallout of a plot written without an exit in mind.
Tangled Twist
Us is built on a wobbly foundation, where the enjoyment of its aesthetics becomes soured by its insistence on trying to explain its series of unfortunate events.
Some would say the ending is open to interpretation. But the way in which Peele insistently builds and builds and builds the plot doesn’t leave much room for an acceptable employment of Lynchian dream-logic. The inevitability of a resolution – especially in a story this messy – can’t help but be met with disappointment.
Us frustrates instead of exhilarates, and leaves the formidable talents of Nyong’o, Winston Duke, and Elisabeth Moss (in a role that could’ve been unsettlingly creepy had her character been given any depth) to flit in the breeze.
And, in a painful twist of the shears, it recycles that ridiculous CG grin from Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare.
There are themes here, perhaps too many to be satisfactorily explored in a single movie: how suppression can lead to uprising and unification; the precarious balancing act between transparency and duality; the differences in communication – and survival instinct – between different types of upper-class families; the eternal push-pull between conformity and individuality. A film that better synthesized these elements would’ve been something to be reckoned with, but as it stands, Us is too busy – and ultimately too indecisive on its through-line – to make any of them stick.
There is creepiness and craftiness afoot, and some memorable imagery early on (ironically, the much-retweeted teaser image of four shadowy figures might be the highlight of the movie). The atonal score (by Michael Abels) is jarring and unsettling. But it’s just too much of Peele attempting to please too many audiences (Universal; the critics; the public). Here’s hoping he finds a way to satisfy himself with his next project.
2 out of 5 stars
The Plot Sickens: Don’t miss Jonny Numb’s review of The House that Jack Built!
Crash Analysis Support Team
Jonny Numb
Jonny Numb (aka Jonathan Weidler) is far from a social-media celebrity, but his mom thinks he’s cool. His morally questionable tactics for gaining attention can be found on full display on Twitter and Letterboxd @JonnyNumb. He also co-hosts THE LAST KNOCK podcast with Billy Crash.
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(Us still image from Universal Pictures.)