Us (2019, R)

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.