Us (2019) Jordan Peele and his doppelgängers from hell
“Did you know that there’s fluoride in the water that the government uses to control our minds?”
Against the faint sounds of waves crashing against the shore of an unseen beach and the ominous sounds of thunder that have also continued throughout the sparse opening production credits, we are presented with the following enigmatic opening crawl in a small white font on a dark black background:
“There are thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the continental United States…
“Abandoned subway systems, unused service routes, and deserted mine shafts…
“Many have no known purpose at all”
From a fade to black we dissolve to a small television and a weather warning for the local Santa Cruz area before the full showing of an advertisement for the “Good Samaritans” and 6 Million Americans who will soon be joining hands and “tethering” themselves in a human chain from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the Twin Towers in New York, and from “Sea to Shining Sea”, as part of the “Hands Across America” initiative to fight hunger and poverty in the richest country the world has ever known. Another advertisement follows, this time for the amusement arcades and oceanfront delights afforded you at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, before we dissolve fully into the film in the year 1986 and a young family of three (mother, father and daughter) enjoying themselves at the very same boardwalk shown in the previously seen advertisement. With the father winning a prize on a carnival stall, he throws it open for his young daughter to choose a prize for her birthday and their reason for enjoying an early evening trip to the boardwalk and after choosing a black Michael Jackson Thriller t-shirt many sizes too big for her, the camera focusses on the birthday girl in her oversized shirt carrying a red toffee apple and whilst this should be a picture of familial happiness and harmony, it’s anything but.
Looking quiet and withdrawn despite her birthday trip to the seaside and prized Michael Jackson t-shirt, Jordan Peele’s camera repeatedly cuts between the young daughter and her quarrelling parents walking ahead of her as the mother worries her t-shirt will give her “nightmares” and the father laughs incredulously that they’re arguing over his winning of a prize and the presentation of a t-shirt to his daughter. As the parents continue to argue, the young girl behind them is quietly fascinated by the sights and sounds surrounding her, of families and couples lovingly enjoying their time at a beachside boardwalk full of fairground rides and brightly lit attractions. Screams of delight and pleasure emanate from the Big Dipper as the father turns to his daughter and playfully suggests they take a ride before he excitedly breaks away from a continuing argument with the young girl’s mother as he spots a Whack-a-Mole game. Handing over two fairground tickets, the father couldn’t be more excited as the mother announces she needs to visit the toilet, but with her young daughter preferring to stay and watch her father, she urges her husband to keep an eye on their daughter…
Far too wrapped up in the fairground game, the father fails to spot his daughter now absent-mindedly walking away from the attraction and towards the nearby beach. A rumble of thunder can be heard as the young girl walks toward and then past a man holding a handmade sign proclaiming “Jeremiah 11:11” before she descends the steps leading away from the amusement park and into the pitch black night of the beach. A camera angle change now shows the barely visible young girl only really seen via the bright lights of the boardwalk behind her as she approaches the shore, a young girl, all alone, in her black Thriller t-shirt and carrying her untouched and uneaten red toffee apple. With flashes of lightning and continual rumbles of thunder both overhead and lighting the near distance, the young girl reaches the ocean side before yet more thunder startles her to turn around and retrace her steps back in the dark and heading toward the sights and sounds of the boardwalk. But her eyes are drawn toward a beachside amusement entitled “Vision Quest” and with an arrow pointing towards the entrance and a brightly lit proclamation to “Find Yourself”, the young girl now walks into shot, toward the fun house amusement and after a close up of her dropping her untouched toffee apple onto the sand of the beach, a reverse camera angle now sees her entering the fun house as the thunder and lightning is now replaced by a pouring rain.
All alone, the young girl walks the brightly lit corridors of the fun house amusement until startled by the screeching and hooting of a toy owl. Now finding herself walking through a maze and hall of mirrors, every light in the building goes out, leaving the young girl frightened and distressed as her breathing becomes a panicked exasperation of despair. Director Peele’s camera locates the only light now available in the fun house and a brightly lit red “Exit” sign the young girl eagerly and quickly walks toward until she bumps into one of the mirrors that now claustrophobically imprison her. Looking around, the same exit sign can now be seen multiple times at awkward mirrored and reflective angles and with her anxiety rising, the young girl begins to whistle to herself until her whistle is returned to her, echoing around this frightening hall of mirrors. Looking around in the pitch darkness, as both the young girl and her echoed whistling ceases, she stands with her back to yet another mirror and as the camera moves slightly, we see the reflection of her back in the mirror behind her. But the reflection was already there before the young girl was and turning around to see the reflection in the mirror, the reflection doesn’t change as we cut to a wide eyed young girl, open mouthed at the non-changing reflection and a young girl now scared to death and…
We cut to an extreme close-up of an eye of a white rabbit and the beginnings of Michael Abels brilliantly haunting “Anthem”, a repetitive, evil sounding mantra that accompanies the blood red opening credits of the film. As Peele retreats slowly backward with his camera we now see five caged white rabbits, then ten (one grey coloured rabbit) and retreating further still we now see approximately fifty differing coloured rabbits all in individual cages and in the foreground, what appears to be row upon row of school aged tables and chairs. At the conclusion of the opening credits, we can clearly see further caged rabbits at the corners of the screen as we cut to shards of sunshine cutting through a tree lined forest below and quickly a pale blue car travelling a single road from an overhead shot eerily reminiscent of the beginning to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
“Present Day” is displayed on the screen as we now cut to the rear view of the car and a sticker affixed to the back windscreen of a family of four all happily holding hands, to our real life family of four and “Adelaide Wilson” (Lupita Nyong’o) resting her head on the passenger side window as husband “Gabriel Wilson” (Winston Duke) happily drives her and their two children “Zora Wilson” (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and “Jason Wilson” (Evan Alex) to their holiday retreat, and a world that will never be the same again in just a few short hours time…
There you have the opening 12 minutes to Jordan Peele’s second of three films to date and Us, the meat in an incredibly impressive sandwich of horror masterpieces stretching back to the horribly brilliant Get Out in 2017 and my favourite film of 2022, Nope. I had the very real pleasure of watching all three of these films during their respective opening weekends at the cinema and after watching Get Out alone (twice, and in back-to-back showings) I watched both Us and Nope with my beautiful son, a pleasing fact we’ve reminisced on as I’ve talked endlessly about my rewatching of this particular film last evening and how impressive, unsettling and brutally shocking it remains to this day.
There is so much I wish to say about this film but which must, for spoiler reasons, remain unsaid. The first note I scribbled into my notepad last evening was along the lines of anyone watching this film for the first time will never watch it in the same way again after the twisting reveal, which isn’t damning it with faint praise but actually the highest of compliments. Wanting to say so much, yet leaving so much left unsaid. You’ll never watch this film in the same way again, but you’ll absolutely feel the need to watch it again. Thus, the mirrors and reflections of the doppelgängers motif of the film, the underclass meeting with the middle class, the social consciousness clashing with the societal construct, the haves and the haves not, the thin line between privilege and poverty, the societal commentary and deep black comedy of a Bong Joon Ho film, the shocking bloody horror of a Cronenberg chiller.
Four superb central performances anchor the film, each with their own fleshed out backstory. A mother desperate to protect her children, a father and son the jokers of the pack. Michael Abels music soundtrack begins as it means to continue with the haunting “Anthem” before “I Got 5 On It” by Luniz and “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Riperton bookend a trio of individual music tracks with “Fuck Tha Police” by NWA brilliantly used to comedic effect midway through the film.
Then you have the pun intended and open to interpretation title of “Us” or US as in the United States and the cornerstone of this doppelgänger film as whomever and whatever *they* may be, they are us, the outcast and the underclass and, to mix and twist my genres and unconnected mediums of film and a certain song of long ago, they are a problem that the devil has sent, the uninvited guests who stay until the end and when asked who they are, their leader has a simple and obvious answer:
“We’re Americans”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon