Us Review - A Well-Crafted Film That Unfortunately Tries To Says Too Much

Truth be told, I’m still trying to understand Us. It starts off at a carnival and ends on wide-angle shots of mountains. The story spans decades. Jordan Peele’s new horror flick subverts the genre on its head for the most part, but also pertains to certain clichés. The eerie foreshadowing of what’s to come bloats the first forty minutes of the film. Because we’ve signed up for horror, the cheerful banter wears thin soon enough. We’re almost waiting for the scares to come. But, when they do, in all his glory, Peele commands you to pay attention and watch as he strips bare the many layers of the human psyche.

It stars Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a troubled woman, whose past traumas have made her apprehensive to return back to the very beach house with her family, almost 33 years after an incident that rocked her life. Adelaide’s premonitions turn out to be true when a family that are a splitting image of her, her husband, Gabe and her children Jason and Zora. In red suits, armed with an aesthetically pleasing golden pair of scissors, these döpplegangers are here to wreak havoc. We follow the Wilsons over two days, as they fight off invaders, and try to make sense of a broken world.

The best thing about Us is N’yongo. She’s always armed with a befuddled gaze. She’s smarter than she lets on. Her performance is harmonious, and she and Peele work well together in unison to ensure the best scares. Us delves deep into her mind, and her insecurities, so when she cries and screams, she rouses the drama to a crescendo. Her eyes hide a lifetime of pain. She’s surprisingly better as Red, Adelaide’s doppleganger, who’s leading this troupe that call themselves the Tethered. Her now infamous take on spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder in which the muscles that generate a person's voice go into periods of spasm.

It’s truly terrifying. Aided by minimal prosthetics, Nyong’o somehow charges Red with this aching vulnerability. There’s this terrifying monologue where she describes warm presents, a nice husband and a magical pregnancy for her counterpart, while detailing raw rabbits, a lecherous freak and a horrific C-section for herself. She makes you sympathise with her, which is really more a function of the writing. It’s no secret that Peele lacks the taut script he had for Get Out. We don’t really understand until the very end what he’s getting at, and perhaps that is intentional.

If Get Out was a horrific story about the politics of race, Us tackles a much wider variety of topics - ranging from homeless people to alien immigrants. Even the actors around Nyong’o are extraordinary. Winston Duke, Elizabeth Moss, Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex are equally effective. Joseph’s haunting counterpart, Umbrae, gets the most screen time as she haunts the family wherever they go in Santa Cruz. The background music, especially a masterful rendition of the cult classic “I Got 5 On It” by Michael Marshall, is imperative in building a tense atmosphere.

The cinematography is also spectacular. Mike Gioulakis somehow makes the film, majority of which is shot at night, seem lit up. The contrast of the shimmering golden scissors and the bleak, dull, ordinary night sky isn’t lost on us. Clearly then, Us is a technical marvel, the kind that doesn’t require flashy budgets and big sets to woo its audiences. But, in leaving the film so open-ended, Peele falters. He tries to keep so many balls in the air, that by the climax, a few of them come crashing down.

Us tries to say too much, but ends up saying too little. It doesn’t have enough of that distinctive spunk of Peele’s Oscar winning debut, and the climax underwhelmed me. It’s a twist that’ll have many viewers unsure of what to feel, but I personally saw it coming. But, I easily got past all this. If you submit to Peele’s vision, and simply allow him to transport you as a theatre of the absurd plays out, there’s more than enough to like here. The messaging in Us is problematically staged, but the lessons are important to learn here.

And paying homage to his comedic roots, Peele bungs in necessary humour. Do you know of any other director that could have a murder scene playing over the song “F*** Tha Police”, or a family discussing Home Alone references while dead bodies encircle them?

That’s enough to buy a ticket.