Us

Dir: Jordan Peele

2019

****

The problem with having an amazing debut film is that you’re expected to produce an equally amazing – if not better - follow up. Many a film director would avoid such comparisons by making a completely different film in a completely different genre but not Jordan Peele, he’s sticking with unconventional horror, and so he should – he’s very good at it. Much like Get Out, Peele approaches the story from different angles, there is nothing formulaic his story-telling, leading certain critics and audiences to proclaim that he’s ‘genre confused’. Nonsense. People have just gotten used to sub-standard horror/thriller films and don’t know what to think when presented with something original. That said, Us relies heavily on nostalgia, the 1980s, the era of the family-friendly fantasy and the classic slasher film. He succeeds beautifully, where even directors who made 80s films in the 80s have failed. It’s an ambitious film with a story that would throw many a great director, but Peele knows his cinema and he’s thrown a few subjects into the meaning of the film, all of which make clear points, but he also leaves just the right amount of mystery that allows the audience to interpret it how they may. The opening scene is so good, its still head to believe it wasn’t filmed in the 1980s. It’s 1987 and young Adelaide Thomas has gone on vacation with her parents to Santa Cruz. Her parents seem rather young, her mother clearly angry at her father, her father playing the fool and coming across as an immature parent. At the beach, she wanders off while her father is engrossed in a fairground game and enters a funhouse promising wonder within. Inside she finds a hall of mirrors and panics when she can’t find a way out. She approaches a mirror only to find a mirror image of herself, but the wrong way round. As her reflection turns, she is faced with a girl who is the mirror image of herself. When her parents eventually find her, she is left in shock and unable to speak. In the present day, the adult Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), who has since recovered her speech, heads to her family's lake house in Santa Cruz with her husband, Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke), and their two children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex). She is apprehensive about the trip, but Gabe brushes off her misgivings while eager to impress their rich friends, Josh and Kitty Tyler (Tim Heidecker and Elisabeth Moss). On the ride there, the family sees the body of a man who has been shot dead being loaded into an ambulance. He resembles a man Adelaide remembers seeing before the hall of mirrors incident all those years ago. They meet the Tyler family at the Santa Cruz beach. After arriving, Jason wanders off and sees the same man standing alone with his arms outstretched, blood dripping from his hands. When she realizes Jason is missing, Adelaide panics, and the family leaves the beach as soon as he is found. That night, a family of four dressed in red appears in the Wilsons' driveway. They break into the Wilsons' home and attack them. The Wilsons quickly realize the four intruders are doppelgängers of themselves, led by Adelaide's double, Red. The only one who speaks, although with a very raspy voice, Red tells them a story about a girl and her shadow. The girl had a good life where she could choose things for herself, but the shadow lived a pale imitation of that life, being forced to copy the girl's actions against her will. Red describes her family as tethered to Adelaide's family, but she says she grew to hate the girl, and brandishing scissors, she says today will be the untethering. The family is separated by their doppelgängers: Red makes Adelaide handcuff herself to a table, Zora is pursued by Umbrae, Gabe is pursued by Abraham, and Jason is sent to "play" with Pluto in the closet. Zora evades Umbrae and Gabe manages to kill Abraham, while Jason discovers that Pluto mirrors his actions and manages to lock him in the closet. Red is drawn away by Pluto's cries, allowing Adelaide to break free. The family regroups and escapes on their boat. Meanwhile, the Tyler family is murdered by their own set of Tethered doppelgängers. The Wilsons arrive and realize what has happened, eventually killing the Tylers' doubles and turning on the news to see that millions of Tethered have been murdering their counterparts across the nation. The doppelgängers subsequently join hands together to form a massive human chain, which was alluded to at the beginning of the film in an advert for the ‘Hands across America’ movement of the 1980s. As the Wilsons drive away in the Tylers' car, they are attacked by Umbrae but manage to kill her. As day breaks, the Wilsons arrive at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where they find the road blocked by their own car, which has been set on fire. Pluto has set a trap for the Wilsons, standing over a gasoline trail with a match. Jason, remembering that Pluto imitates his actions, makes Pluto walk backward into the fire, however, Red reappears and abducts Jason, making Adelaide run after them. While Zora and Gabe recuperate in an abandoned ambulance, Adelaide returns to the funhouse and finds a secret tunnel in the hall of mirrors. It leads to an underground facility overrun by rabbits, where Adelaide finds Red. Red explains her belief that the Tethered were created by humans to control their counterparts on the surface. She says the experiments copied their bodies, but were unable to copy the soul, leaving the Tethered condemned to mindlessly copy the actions of their surface counterparts. The experiment was ended and the Tethered were abandoned. They lived on their own for generations, in abandoned mine shafts and subway tunnels, until Red organized them to escape and take revenge. The two fight, with Red anticipating and countering all of Adelaide's attacks. Adelaide finally manages to overpower her and impales her, then breaks Red's neck with her handcuffs. She finds Jason hidden in a locker. Adelaide drives the family away in the ambulance and recalls the night she met Red in the hall of mirrors. It is revealed that Red is the real Adelaide and the surviving Adelaide is the doppelgänger. That night in 1987, the doppelgänger choked the real Adelaide unconscious, damaging her vocal cords, dragged her underground, handcuffed her to a bed, and took her place in the surface world, revealing why she couldn't speak after being found and why Red is the only clone that could speak. While the Wilsons drive off, Jason looks at his mother suspiciously, as if he is already aware of the secret. The film ends with the camera pulling back to show that the Tethered have joined hands across the country with news helicopters hovering above. The 80s themes and the underground people reminded me a bit of Stranger Things, but to be fair the film has more elements of films such as The Shining and Funny Games. Films such as Funny Games are always seen as more disturbing than your common slasher because they feature real people, rather than masked monsters. Peele somehow gives us both, making it a rather sinister and brutal horror film but a ‘blockbuster’ type horror at the same time. The imagery is perfect, with the arrival of the doppelgängers particularly terrifying. There are a lot of ideas at play here. The original idea came from an episode of The Twilight Zone, but more than that the film touches on the effects of the class system and marginalization. The doppelgängers are effigies of situational classism. They're trapped, both mentally and physically, and are ignored by society. There is a moment when the doppelgängers declare that "we're Americans" when asked who they are, which could represent the duality of American society, how some citizens can afford to live on top of the class system, while others are stuck in poverty. It is called Us after all. I think it’s a great line to throw in there for debate without the need for justification. Weirdly, the Tethered's red jump suits and their single gloves are an allusion to Michael Jackson. We also see his Thriller t-shirt seen on young Adelaide. Peele has stated that Jackson was "the patron saint of duality, plus it also fit in well with the 80s theme of the film. The director playfully stated that "Everything in this movie was deliberate, that is one thing I can guarantee you. Unless you didn't like something and that was a complete accident". The film also contains numerous references to Jeremiah 11:11, which reads: "Therefore thus saith the Lord: 'I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them”. Of course, Jeremiah warned Jerusalem was facing destruction due to false idols. Old biblical parables are scary, its all part and parcel of putting a good horror together. These are all ingredients, Peele has set out everything you need in order to make the cake, it is up to the audience to cook it. Peele has since explained that the central theme of the film is indeed American privilege. He said, “One of the central themes in Us is that we can do a good job collectively of ignoring the ramifications of privilege. I think it's the idea that what we feel like we deserve comes, you know, at the expense of someone else's freedom or joy. You know, the biggest disservice we can do as a faction with a collective privilege like the United States is to presume that we deserve it, and that it isn't luck that has us born where we're born. For us to have our privilege, someone suffers. That's where the Tethered connection, I think, resonates the most, is that those who suffer and those who prosper are two sides of the same coin. You can never forget that. We need to fight for the less fortunate.” Essentially we need to challenge ourselves, just as they had to in the film, and sometimes there is nothing more frightening than facing yourself. Brilliant.