Us

So a little bit of background about my viewing experience of this movie before getting into the review. I was on an 8 hour flight to Spain. In my mind, it was 1 in the morning and I had just finished an already spooky-ish film in Split. I thought to myself that I was in the mood for another scary film and while I was interested in seeing this movie, it wasn't one I was ready to really spend money on seeing, so I decided to watch this film sleep deprived on a dark plane... the result was not a good choice overall. After I finished the movie I got at best 2 hours of really messed up dreams. So don't do that if you're going overseas for vacation. Or do if you're fine with messed up dreams and being jet lagged.

Us is the second feature film of Jordan Peele. I think another good note is that if you're looking for a similar feeling with Us that you got with Get Out, you're either going to be surprised or disappointed. For me, the unique feeling of Us from Get Out shows that Jordan Peele is still on a pretty good track director-wise. While I didn't like Us as much as Get Out, it felt different and it's pretty great when a director is able to create a new experience while maintain his signature style.

Us follow the story of an upper middle class black family going on vacation in California. The main protagonist is named Adelaide (played by Lupita Nyong'o). Her and her family, Gabe her husband (played by Winston Duke) and her two kids Zora and Jason (played by Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex) are vacationing with an upper class white family parented by Josh and Kitty (played by Tim Heidecker and Elisabeth Moss).

I wanna be pretty careful with the spoilers because this film does have a pretty intriguing twist and I don't want to give anything away. Essentially a segment of Adelaide's childhood is shown at the beginning relating to the place that they're going and while the first 15 minutes or so of the movie isn't really that scary or anything, you do get a really great set up with the introductions of the characters and their interesting backstory.

The meat of the story though occurs the first evening of their trip when they are visited by another family who look exactly like them wearing red suits and carrying scissors. And yes, it is freaky as hell.

There is a deeper story behind this family and the reason why they look exactly like the Thomas's. I won't spoil that in this review because not only is this movie still relatively new, it is worth discovering if you haven't seen it for yourself.

The family must survive the night with this creepy doppelganger family's mysterious plan and the only thing I would say that could be breaching on spoilers is that they're not the only family that this is happening to.

Again, this movie is a little bit of a trip when it is 2AM in your mind and you're on a dark plane trying to get some sleep.

Everyone does a really interesting and unique take on their doppelganger as well as their character's reaction to this creepy doppelganger. However, the standouts are the matriarchal characters of Lupita N'yongo and in the supporting category, Elisabeth Moss.

It really shouldn't be a surprise at this point that N'yongo brings a top notch performance. Looking at her filmography, it actually kind of amazes me that she really has only had 6 live action roles (and the biggest missed opportunity in a motion capture role in the new Star Wars films, THANKS JJ!) and yet her brand is just so strong. 6 films is not a huge filmography on top of the fact that she is a relatively young actress still and yet she has an amazing reputation. My mind is actually kind of blown writing this and thinking about how she's exploded into a household name in a very short period of time.

In this film that brand is still on point. Adelaide facing off against her evil doppelganger (whose "tethered" name is Red) is intense, somewhat funny at times, and ultimately a really interesting dynamic.

Again, everyone does a really good job in both the acting and the creepiness factor, but I did want to make note of Elisabeth Moss.

I know Elisabeth Moss best from Mad Men. I know she's probably more popular now for The Handmaid's Tale, but up until this movie, I've really only seen her as Peggy Olson.

So for her to be, in my opinion the most unsettling part of the movie (and keep in mind I watched this sleep deprived at what felt like 2 in the morning in the dark), it kind of blew my mind. Her normal character is interesting in a strange way that an alcoholic bitchy white lady can be. But things really get interesting when she and her family is affected by the appearance of the doppelgangers and the scene above is just a great performance by Moss.

At the end of the day, thing things wrong with this film are of a dual nature. The first is, home invasion style of horror is not really my cup of tea. While this is probably the exception to the rule, eventually the chase gets a tad repetitive and it gets reduced to a simple chase over constructive storytelling. Again, Us provides an exception to that rule, but by its nature it wasn't really a story I wasn't as interested in the first place and while I ended up enjoying it, it's probably not something I'd be racing to go back and see. So at the end of the day, it just comes down to personal preference. The story is interesting and unique and I count it as an absolute win for Jordan Peele, its just not what I prefer.

The second type of criticism comes from just a few minor issues I have with the film. There is a relationship between the doppelgangers and the real people that does not get used nearly enough. Again, I'm keeping it vague, but sometimes that relationship makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. That's a more nitpicky critique that doesn't make a huge issue to the movie, but its worth mentioning.

The bigger issue I had were the few moments where the humor undermined the story or the suspenseful moment. While I don't like jump scares, I am figuring out that I like horror atmosphere and Jordan Peele does have the tendency to insert humor at some inopportune times.

To stay positive, I love that Jordan Peele has that comedic background and you can see that influence in his film. I'm not saying take it out. I just think the humor at times had the same disrupting quality that it can have in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where a serious moment is happening and suddenly a joke is inserted, dispelling any serious moment very abruptly. Used correctly, humor can relieve the tension, but it can also disrupt it and I feel like that has to be utilized carefully.

But at the end of the day, he's the director with two really good movies under his belt and he can do whatever he wants.

I might do a spoiler chat about Us, but at the same time, it's been a few weeks. The twist is pretty good and I would love to discuss it at some point, but I don't know if it warrants an entirely new post. My bigger point is that you should check out Us if you're a fan of Jordan Peele's directing, if you're a fan of Lupita N'yongo, or if you're just interested at delving into Horror a little more. While Get Out is far less of a horror film and more of a psychological thriller the way Split is, Us is firmly closer to the horror genre and could provide a good stepping off point for people like me trying to get more into horror films.

But what did you think of Us? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!