Some Further Thoughts on the movie Us directed by Jordan Peele

 Spoiler Alert if you have not seen this movie as I talk very directly about a key plot point of the movie.

I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.

How do you follow-up one of the most celebrated horror films of the decade? By making another film that is hotly anticipated. We saw a horror film meditating on race relations with Get Out (2017), but with Us (2019) Jordan Peele turns his focus to class inequality and the division of American society between the haves and have-nots. This movie can also be seen  as a commentary on what Generation X thinks about American society in the new century–their anxieties about it, but I want more to focus on the class allegory. Like Peele's previous feature, this film rewards repeat viewings; Peele has really learned well from the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movies.

The using of the Tethered as the underclass (they literally are forced to live underground) and "regular" people as the privileged ruling class was brilliant enough. Peele really outdoes himself by showing what he thinks would happen if two members of these classes found themselves in each other's shoes–a kind of warped version of The Prince and the Pauper or Trading Places (1983) as horror instead of comedy. In Peele's mind, the member of the underclass who schemed her way to the surface is able to more or less "pass." The member of the surface world that is kidnapped and forced to live among the underclass does not accept her supposed fate. She gathers a following among the underclass–the Tethered–and decides to launch a violent invasion/revolution on the privileged surface world. The idea that Peele postulates how one rises out of the underclass and if the closing of the inequality gap can be done without massive loss-of-life is something the movie gives a very pessimistic answer to. We aren't led to believe in the end that the real Tethered Adelaide was even a little bit remorseful for what her actions kicked-off. We know that the leader of the Tethereds' revolution is killed before the event is completed and the movie ends without "us" (the audience) knowing the aftermath.

The confirmation of what happened in the house of mirrors that we see at the end served more to make me feel conflicted than anything else. Does the film mean to tell us that a revolution against inequality is not worth the cost? Is it saying that only select talented people can lead it? When watching the whole film, the characters of Adelaide and Red come-off more tragic and frustrating than anything else. In the end we are forced into the same predicament as the son Jason of reckoning with the truth and our complicity in the inequality and suffering of the world around...us. 

My Review of Get Out (2017) directed by Jordan Peele

 I've never been a big horror movie fan, but I got my horror-movie go-to list. This movie and any other with Jordan Peele's name on it is on that list. As soon as the previews for this film came out I was curious and seeing this film when it was released was an experience. This is one of the few movies that gets scarier when you see it the second time and you are in on it. From what I understand, this movie and Us (2019) are part of a larger story of a sinister conspiracy.

Chris and his girlfriend Rose plan a weekend at Rose's parents' house. Chris is nervous because he's black and Rose and her parents are white, but she reassures him that it's fine. On first meeting the parents are overly-friendly, but the black workers at the house are noticeably uncanny in their speech and mannerisms. After a run-in with Rose's hypnotist mom, things go down-hill for Chris.

This film being the commentary that it was on the dawning of the Trump-era has been talked about. The look at racism among white leftists that this film meditates on has been talked about. I want to focus on the idea of being in a situation where there is no sanctuary. Where those who you thought were friendly allies were actually not only enemies, but in some cases the masterminds. One wonders what a Denmark Vesey or Toussaint L'Ouveture would have thought about this film. For me, the most agonizing part of this movie was when Chris thought he was with a friend and we know that was not the case.

I should also comment briefly on the hero of the film: Lil' Rel Howery playing the role of Chris' best friend Rod. Rod is the character every horror movie needs. Yes he's funny, but the fact that remains that while the antagonists were one step ahead of Chris, Rod was one step ahead of everybody! Howery gave that star-turn performance here.

This movie holds up so well because despite the fantastical elements, so much of it is rooted in the bitter truth that people carry in their hearts due to the myth of white supremacy. Peele originally conceived of this movie as a meta-commentary of the treatment of black horror film-fan by mainstream horror cinema generally. But of course, if you've read James Baldwin's review of The Exorcist in his book The Devil Finds Work then you know that the ideas of Get Out had a long relevance before Peele wrote the script and as long as the dual ideologies of whiteness and anti-blackness exist, not simply Chris but the whole country is doomed to be trapped in the sunken place. Oh, and the ending was geniusly subversive allusion to Othello.