Review: Us
"Find yourself" reads the sign of an abandoned hall of mirrors and, indeed, young Adelaide does find herself, literally, and thus the terrors begin in Us, writer-director Jordan Peele's follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Get Out.
On the face of it, Us appears a more conventional horror film, more blatant in its reference points - amongst them, Hitchcock, De Palma, Haneke's Funny Games, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and, most frequently, Kubrick's The Shining - than Get Out. Yet, as with Get Out, Us is a brilliant provocation, arguably deeper in its exploration of self, specifically the African American self, and generally the American self. Playing like an elevated episode of The Twilight Zone, Us takes what on paper may seem ordinary and imbues it with the macabre. Take the image of a family of four holding hands standing outside a house. It would seem normal enough, but their initial facelessness and unsettling immobility very quickly crawls under the skin like the most predatory of parasites.
That family, garbed in jumpsuits the colour of dried blood, have come to terrorise the Wilsons, comprised of Gabe (Winston Duke, utilising his bulk to often goofy effect), Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), and their two children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), who have returned to their Santa Cruz beach house for a holiday. The location proves significant for Adelaide for it was the site of a childhood trauma during which, whilst on a day out with her parents, she wandered off into the funhouse and discovered a self which was not a reflection, but her doppelgänger. Adelaide has been edgy since their arrival and she observes signs in the air that lead her to believe that this double, whom she believes has been chasing her all her life, is fast approaching. She is not wrong.
What entails is sinister and grisly and perpetually full of dread. "It's us," Jason exclaims at the sight of the intruders and the intruders are precisely that, albeit a less civilised, more primal versions of the stable and well-to-do Wilsons. Though their counterparts are suitably frightening - Jason's double scurries about on all fours, for example - the most terrifying of all is Adelaide's and that is due in large part to exemplary work by Nyong'o, who is both fierce and fearful as Adelaide and absolutely chilling as her shadow, employing a strained, growling whisper that heralds a figure who has emerged from the darkest depths.
As a horror film in and of itself, Us more than gets the job done, conjuring scares and deploying images that will surely result in numerous nightmares. Peele once again proves what a terrific sense of pacing and tension-building he possesses. Beneath the trappings of the genre lies a tale that begets multiple readings. The Tethered, as the doubles refer to themselves, can be interpreted as the stereotype of Black America that people in power use to maintain their fearmongering; they may represent the ills and injustices that always bubble to the surface no matter how many times one tries to keep them buried; or they may indicate the inevitable reckoning that all of us shall face if prejudice, whether it be racial or economic, is allowed to keep thriving. However one chooses to view the Tethered or the story overall, Us is prime example of thrilling, thoughtful, and essential filmmaking from an artist who has emphatically established that he is no one trick pony.
Us
Directed by: Jordan Peele
Written by: Jordan Peele
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex
