I’ve been
waiting for Us since it was just “Jordan
Peele’s next movie, starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke,” and the closer
its release got, the more psyched I became.
The first trailer was so good that I spent the next couple days
nervously closing my curtains. When it
came out last week, I contemplated going opening night but, considering said
reaction to the trailer, I decided I’d be better off waiting until I could see
it in daylight, so I caught it that weekend.
Even despite my precautions, it still took me a few days before I
stopped leaving all my lights on and holding my breath whenever I rounded a
corner/entered a room while I was home alone… :shudder: For today, I won’t spoil anything that you
can’t see in the previews, so expect another, more in-depth write-up or two on
this movie another time.
In many
ways, the Wilsons are an ordinary family on an ordinary vacation. They have a summer home by the lake, and dad
Gabe cheerfully makes plans for a drive to the beach in Santa Cruz. However, mom Adelaide had a traumatic
experience there as a child, and she’s on edge, constantly looking over her
shoulder. Her fears come to pass that
night as the family is beset by a group of eerie doppelgängers who break into
the house with the aim of doing their lookalikes in. Led by Adelaide, the family fights to survive
the night.
As I
said, I’m avoiding spoilers today, so there’s not a whole lot more I can say
about the story. The themes it explores
are interesting, touching on several diferent ideas without definitively
spelling out any one-to-one “doppelgängers=X” analogy. It goes to some unexpected places, not all of
which are quite slam dunk developments but which I’m still pondering and
unpacking. The creep factor is up to
here, but, while the film is definitely violent, it’s not super-high on gore,
which I appreciate; a lot of the most vicious blows are filmed either with the
camera on the perpetrator (rather than the victim) or from a distance. Like Get
Out, it demonstrates a great command of mood and atmosphere, and Peele
knows when to break up the tension or lure us into a false sense of security
with some moments of humor.
Anything
with “evil twins” that has the actors playing dual roles is going to draw
attention to its acting, and that is very much the case here, deservedly
so. All the actors do a terrific job
differentiating between their characters (and one another – each doppelgänger
is “off” in a similar, but not
identical, way.) Like many others, I
discovered (and loved) Winston Duke through his performance of M’Baku in Black Panther, and it’s great to see him
play two such different characters here.
I really enjoy Gabe’s warmth and corny dad jokes, and I like seeing his
determination to stand up to the doppelgängers, even as it’s clear that this is
like nothing he’s ever done before – “big scary Black man” is such a
readily-available image to conjure, especially for a man of Duke’s size, so
kudos to the film (and Duke) that it gets us to genuinely laugh out loud at his
early attempts to seem intimidating.
Both actors playing the younger Wilsons, Shahadi Wright Joseph as
daughter Zora and Evan Alex as son Jason, also turn in strong work, and
Elizabeth Moss is effective in a supporting role.
But this
film turns on Lupita Nyong’o’s twin performances, and she’s stunning. Her work has impressed me in pretty much
everything I’ve seen from her, but here, she’s given so much to sink her teeth
into. Adelaide is such a layered
character, and her doppelgänger is by far the most complex. I can’t say enough good things about how
awesome she is here, and I’m thrilled to see her playing the lead in a film so
worthy of her talents.
Warnings
Violence,
strong thematic elements, disturbing images, drinking/drug references, and
language.
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