…The movie. Spoilers obviously.
The purpose of this post is just to get some thoughts out. I’m not trying to provide biting, game-changing commentary about a movie I only saw once. Plus I’m sure you have other things to do and articles to read.
So I saw Us this weekend and had two almost immediate reactions. The first being, “I enjoyed that” and the second, “I’m not sure this was a good movie.” After reading and thinking about things, I’m inclined to admit that my second take is wrong but I’m still bothered by things. Jordan Peele is brilliant; the way he can fit so many things into a two hour experience and have people thinking it afterwards is dope.
Let’s talk about the dope things. A lot of the acting was really great. Lupita was brilliant as both Adelaide and her clone Red. Elisabeth Moss also brought it HARD for the little time she had. The non speaking parts as her evil twin were mind-blowing to me even though she does this brilliantly in The Handmaid’s Tale. Winston Duke was cool as the well-meaning, at times utterly useless father and the child acting didn’t annoy me. The film had great humor, which we are accustomed to with Peele’s work and from a technical stand point, it looked great.
There were some really great moments that really stuck with me. The shot of the family walking on the beach with such perfect shadows was cool foreshadowing (Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa puns). The “fight scene” in the hallway between the Lupitas was a highlight for me with Red deftly and gracefully avoiding an exhausted and desperate Adelaide. The shot of Red at the chalkboard expositing (read: preaching) to a frozen Adelaide was a cool visual. Also, the white family being effortlessly murdered was so good due to its quick and vicious nature. The music, setting and possible unexpectedness of more clones (idk it might be fuck trailers from here on out) provided some much needed stake raising.
The “twist,” which I initially hated, became really cool after I left the theater. It is predictable and telegraphed but does explain many things that we were shown earlier in the movie. We understand why she wasn’t talking after the incident, especially with lines like “I just want my daughter back” exclaimed by Adelaide’s mother. It explains the subtle sympathy Adelaide has when she sees both the clone kids die. It explains the inexplicable: a black person snapping off beat. It also creates a conflict for the audience between who is the real villain. It also just creates a bunch of other problems.
After Get Out we were trained to look for deeper meaning in Jordan’s films. He was doing things on purpose as a commentary on society. My problem is that you can go too far. Your movie has to work on a surface level before it goes to the deeper, metaphorical, “LET’S BREAK THIS SHIT DOWN” level. Us works on that deep level but from a basic storytelling perspective….eh? I liked gaining an appreciation for the film the more I read and after I thought more but I shouldn’t come out of the theater questioning the film’s merit. Get Out worked immediately and then with further watches, reading and thinking was further enhanced.
As I said above the twist was predictable and just because it worked, it was still predictable. It also made some of the flashbacks feel disingenuous. Sure, it is just easy misdirection to have the audience think our main character is remembering her time at the carnival but those are not her memories. She’s totally allowed to have PTSD considering her actual past but now I don’t trust the movie? I overthought this point but still. Another issue is that the film kinda yada yada’d the explanation of the clones. Government experiment. Oh…ok? Why were the clones mimicking what the aboveground people were doing but then could act independently for murder plot reasons? Were children cloned or did the clone adults have clone children? (THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS) In an interview the director said that he doesn’t mind leaving the backstory open so he has room to play with/further develop it in the future. I actually don’t mind this either but I think it’s a little of a cop out so you can move on with other parts of the movie. Finally, I barely got the ballet situation. Once the real Adelaide went underground, she was looked at as different because she could talk but her fellow undergroundlings really took notice when they saw her dance. I missed something. Did the clones notice because they usually can’t move so independently and gracefully? We saw them mimicking the aboveground people during the carnival scene and it was shown that the now replaced Adelaide was also dancing. The rules of the tether wasn’t set up properly and then those unknown rules were tossed because of that one special girl. UGH.
What did redeem Us was everything that wasn’t shown on the screen. I think the deeper meanings people arrive to with Peele movies are amazing. Note: I didn’t come up with ALL of these theories, I’m just regurgitating and adding on to some that resonated with me. A big theme in this film was classism and nature vs nurture. I like the idea that the clones underground represented the lower class. They are humans and they mimicked those above. The lower class does the same things as the upper class but isn’t afforded the same freedom or pleasures. They can’t talk because their voices don’t matter. The only way to become part of a higher class is through extreme and sometimes violent methods or physical accomplishments like dance in the movie or for example sports in “they made it out” situations in real life. These are both shown literally in the film and I think it is brilliant. We see Adelaide as this loving mother who fights tooth and nail for her family but this could be seen as someone trying to maintain the status quo. Like…you choked out a little girl to have a better life and now we see you murdering actual humans to uphold it. Even though the “government experiment” angle is flimsy, I could see the connection and parallels between the systematic oppression and subsequent abandonment of our own government. I thought the “We’re Americans!” line was AWFUL and ham-fisted but it got the point across.
Nobody is comfortable with themselves in this movie. Gabe is jealous of his friend’s car and boat. Offred got botox and thinks she could’ve been a movie star. Zora doesn’t want to run track any more and Jason is always accompanied by a mask. The Adelaide/Red thing is obvious but it shows how we can adapt as people depending on our environment. Gabe bought a boat. Pluto got a mask to stop burning his face. Adelaide learned how to speak. On the contrary, she stopped dancing because she wasn’t naturally talented enough to keep going while Red used it to her advantage to create a super sick fight scene. The clones survived off of raw rabbit meat.
BUT IN THE END IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER.
Adelaide won, Red died. Why? The people above ground had the tools to succeed while the clones had scissors. They weren’t even creative enough to try something else (they were essentially being led by a child) because they were never given a chance to learn.
Whatever. This is a lot of words and I could go on forever pointing out cool connections. I had problems with the movie but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Would watch again.
PS: Movie wasn’t even scary
Just This Thing 