Us movie review

Here's what you need to know; when the Wilson family goes on a vacation to Santa Cruz, Adelaide becomes convinced that something is coming, that a demon from her past is slowly finding its way back to her. Her fears are confirmed however when their holiday home is invaded by a family of people that look exactly like them, and from there, the rabbit hole only gets deeper as they desperately try to escape from themselves.
A few months ago I watched Get Out, Jordan Peele's first film, and for a film that I was nervously curious about, it blew my mind, I loved it, and with such a strong first film, I naturally got very excited for his second film, one about evil doppelgangers, though since this is Jordan Peele, that probably isn't what it's actually about. The problem is that I haven't yet figured out what this film is about, what its deeper meaning is, so while it definitely has one, and I will be returning to this film in the future, this review will be less about the deeper shit and more about the film as a film.

Us' opening minutes very effectively set up the film's conflict, giving us a flashback of the night that Adelaide wondered off from her parents and met a doppelganger of herself in a funhouse. But what follows is something that I'm sure a lot of people won't expect; a drawn out build up. Us takes a surprisingly long time to get to the action, so to speak, instead building up its characters and atmosphere as the Wilsons go to the beach and weird shit starts happening. This pays off in the end, but my friend did fall asleep during this part of the film, so like Get Out before it, Us is a film that very much takes its time. When shit starts happening though is when the horror truly begins, and just like Get Out, Us is one banger of a horror film. Trapped in this horrific event is the Wilsons, of which you have Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke as Adelaide and Gabe respectively, and these two are really good. Winston Duke is just a really likable presence in the film, he's such a dad character; making silly jokes and singing along to hip hop in the car, and while comedy in a horror film isn't always the best idea (please refer to my review of last year's Halloween,) his comedic quality adds a great deal of charm to both him and the family as a whole, and none of his jokes step over the line, if you know what I mean, they never compromise of the horror, probably because Jordan Peele knows what he's doing behind the camera. Adelaide meanwhile is the focal point of the conflict, with the film focusing both on her and on her evil doppelganger; Red, and both of them were likable in their own way, with Adelaide being a very typical mum character who's clearly got some screws loose because of events in her past, and Red being the matriarch of a family of murderous clones, the only one that can talk, and when she talks, it varies between really creepy and kind of goofy, which is true of a lot of this film. All the other doppelgangers, which call themselves "the Tethered" communicate through animalistic grunting, howling and squawking, which sounds pretty goofy, and in some scenes, it really is. The only one that wasn't kind of funny was the son's doppelganger, who walks around on all fours and growls like a dog, which is pretty fucking creepy. The kids were also very good in the film, but they're naturally overshadowed by their parents, because their dad is M'baku.

Us plays out less like your run of the mill horror film and more like a thriller; it's a film that gets in your head, which also makes it my kind of horror film. From the doppelgangers appearing in the driveway onwards, the film is basically a non-stop creepfest; the threat never goes away, literally and figuratively, and the scenes where the family faces off against the tethered are very intense for the most part, and the Tethered themselves are a very menacing presence. There's just something off about them; the way they look, the way they move, and like all the weird acting black people in Get Out, this builds the suspense, the mystery, as you're left wondering just what these things are. It actually reminds me of a Junji Ito manga; The Hanging Balloons, in which the characters try to escape balloons bearing their faces who relentless stalk and kill them. The Hanging Balloons is a little more weird than Us though, on account of them being attacked by giant floating heads, but I found the idea very similar, and the basic premise of the film, the whole evil doppelganger thing, is something I found both fascinating and terrifying. Get Out's horror, for me, came from the notion of individuality and of that individuality being taken away from you; becoming a powerless passenger in your own life, and the concept this film plays on, at least initially, is almost as scary as that. The idea of there being an evil me out there whose sole mission was to kill me genuinely did keep me awake the night I saw the film, judge me all you want for that. But then the film does something I wasn't expecting, and this is both a good thing and a bad thing. About half way through the film, it becomes a different film; though to explain how or why would be a bit of a spoiler. This revelation is something I didn't know going in, and it made the film far more engaging as a result of me not knowing, it opened a door to a far, far larger and more compelling mystery that I became very eager to either see solved or go home and solve myself like I did with Get Out. The difference between the two films is that this opening of the door introduces new problems into the story, problems that didn't exist in Get Out's much smaller, tighter story. What I do like about this film's shift is how it's handled and portrayed, which, like the concept of the evil doppelgangers, is very creepy and ominous, and again, wouldn't be out of place in a Junji Ito manga. When looked at on the surface, this film's story is something straight out of a nightmare; even ignoring the deeper themes are clearly in there somewhere, this premise is brilliant, and it could make for a very effective horror movie, which Us is, sometimes.

My problem isn't the handling of the horror, which I think is amazing, nor is it the handling of the comedy, which I also think is amazing, my problem is that the film doesn't really make sense. When shit starts going down, and you have all of these creepy and weird things going on, but there isn't any reason or explanation for it, that is when the film is at its strongest because you don't know why any of this is happening, it's a very addictive mystery, it's a thread that you can't help but pull on. Then the film shifts gears around the half way mark and it gets even better, the mystery deepens as the film escalates from a home invasion thriller into something much more eldritch, and if the film left it there, I'd have probably been happier, because then the film keeps going, keeping trying to explain itself, while, oxymoronically, giving too much away and not giving away enough at the same time. Like Get Out, Us has something going on under the surface; a meaning deeper and more relevant than the film itself, this is something I not only expected but hoped to see, because it was undoubtedly Get Out's greatest strength. But unlike Get Out, which was very contained and straightforward in its themes, Us is a bit of a mess; there's plenty of religious symbolism in the film, plenty of very deliberate shots of animals, but the film's core themes just aren't expressed very well in the film; and maybe I missed something, maybe if I pay more attention when I inevitably watch this film again, I'll see something new that'll start putting it together for me. According to Peele, this film is about our fear of the other, and maybe that's an idea that'll I'll pick up on after a second, third, fourth, however many-th viewing. But as it stands, I'm left at the end of this films with answers to questions I didn't want answered and answers I wanted nowhere to be found. The film's explanation of what the Tethered are, for example, is an answer I really didn't want, partly because the mystery of them was so frightening and mysterious, and also because the explanation the film gives makes absolutely no sense. There are clearly rules in this world, the film just never tells you what they are in a clear manner, the Tethered clearly have some kind of bond with their respective people, but the film never explains what that bond is or how it works, and as for what they are, I'd have much preferred it if it was never explained or was instead explained as some supernatural or freak event, but what they actually are just doesn't work in any practical way, and I'm really trying not to tell you why, because I still don't want to spoil anything. Then there's the ending, and while the film didn't exactly explain its own rules, the ending almost certainly breaks them, it also breaks my brain, because it doesn't make any sense, and again, maybe it will in the future, but right now, I have no idea what Peele was going for in this film's final moments, at that point, the tantalising thread this film offered at the start has been pulled so much that whole thing unravels and falls apart.


If you want to get crazy, we can get crazy
I was really excited to see just what Peele would conjure up in his follow up to Get Out, and in some ways, Us is a very worthy follow up; its premise is nightmare fuel, and when the execution of said premise works, it really works, and this film is creepy and frightening and really gets the noggin joggin', add onto that the likable and funny characters and you've got a brilliant horror film, one with really creepy and fascinating villains, nail biting horror and a beautiful sense of escalation. But then the film adds more, and then adds more, and more, and its own ambitiousness starts to fail under the weight of plot holes and gaps in logic, not to mention a social commentary that's definitely there, but is so buried under everything going on in this film that I don't know what it's trying to say. The film goes big, but in my opinion, it goes a little too big, and loses some of its magic in the process. That being said, I'm definitely watching Us again, and I'd recommend that you watch it too, because it does a lot right, and shows once again that Peele has some serious game as a horror director. But Us had some big shoes to fill, and while it comes close in a lot of ways, it doesn't reach the bar set by Get Out, but then again, how could it.