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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 22 March 2019

In ‘Us,’ Jordan Peele holds a dark mirror to America

By JAKE COYLE mares. It’s a movie moment
Associated Press to savor. When was the last
Jordan Peele has tight- time a filmmaker’s sopho-
ened his grip in “Us,” a less more release was greeted
satirical and more slaugh- with such anticipation?
terhouse horror parable It’s as if Peele struck such
than the writer-director’s a deep and rich vein in
astonishing debut, “Get “Get Out” that no one can
Out,” that despite its defi- wait to see what else he’ll
ciencies will leave all who uncover. Peele has found
enter its shadowy world a new passageway into
convinced of Peele’s grow- American psychology, and
ing command as a singular we’re all waiting outside
conjurer of American night- the mine for him to call out

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex
and Lupita Nyong’o in a scene from “Us,” written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Associated Press
from the dark with his latest perfectly realized by Peele. than the crows did in Alfred
revelation. From the start, we feel Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
And in “Us,” Peele has pro- Peele’s increasing confi- Nightmares don’t always
duced a terrifying artifact: dence as a filmmaker and, need clarification.
a sinister ballet of doppel- as Michael Abel’s rhythmic, But I do think “Us” would
gangers and inversions that chanting score plays over work better if it gathered
makes flesh the unseen un- the opening credits, we its suspense more steadily
derbelly lurking beneath settle in for what we know, and more closely tethered
every sunny American as soon as the Wilsons its ideas to its characters.
dream and behind every make their vacation plans, If the doppelgangers are
contented nuclear family. will be Adelaide’s frightful stand-ins for an otherness
It’s a scissor-sharp rebuke reunion with her childhood that we fear in others but
to anyone who’s ever held mirror-image tormentor. deny in ourselves, I’m not
hands and sang “Kumba- It comes fast, like an as- sure zombie-like maniacs
ya.” sault. Soon after unpacking were the most interest-
“Us” begins on images of their bags and after a day ing way to go, or the most
one such moment of sup- at the beach with some humanizing. And Peele’s
posed unity: Hands Across friends (Elisabeth Moss script, delving so relent-
America, that wholesome and Tim Heidecker), the lessly into terror, doesn’t
‘80s experiment in linking red-dressed doubles ap- leave either side of the mir-
arms across the country. It’s pear. Their arrival is harrow- ror room for much reflec-
seen on an old TV screen ing and violent and “Us” tion. “It’s all just craziness,”
with VHS tapes of “Goonies” quickly takes the shape, someone says.
and “C.H.U.D.” leaning a little disappointingly, of Yet there’s an undeniable
against it. Later, when the a home invasion movie. A power of “Us” as a deeper,
Wilson family takes a vaca- student of both genre and more primal vision of a two-
tion near Santa Cruz, Cali- satire, Peele’s genius lies in tiered truth in American so-
fornia, they look out of their his ability to sustain both. ciety that’s as unshakable
window at night and see But in “Us,” he sometimes as one’s shadow. Peele,
the ominous silhouettes of struggles to break free of working with cinematog-
a hand-holding family just genre tropes. rapher Mike Gioulakis (“It
like themselves outside on The Wilsons’ doppelgang- Follows,” ‘’Glass”), creates
the driveway. ers are a kind of sadistic, fever-dream images with
Their appearance is eerie scissor-wielding echo of passionate precision.
to all: the mother Adelaide each family member. As And then there’s Lupita.
(Lupita Nyong’o), the fa- “Us” bleeds into one ghast- While each member of the
ther Gabe (Winston Duke) ly scrape after another, family excels, Nyong’o de-
and their two kids, Zora we gradually grasp that livers arguably her fiercest,
(Shahadi Wright Joseph) they’re part of a larger up- most extraordinary perfor-
and Jason (Evan Alex). But rising of an underclass who mance as both Adelaide
it’s Adelaide who most im- are each horribly tethered and her monstrous dop-
mediately recognizes the to a surface-world human. pelganger. The wild differ-
danger. The Santa Cruz Adelaide’s double explains ence between the two will
boardwalk is where she, as simply: “We’re Americans.” get the most attention, but
a young child, wandered “Get Out” proved Peele I was most impressed by
into a carnival tent’s hall of a master of metaphor but the great subtlety of her
mirrors to find herself face- “Us” works less on a purely Adelaide, a quiet, uneasy
to-face with her exact dou- symbolic level than on its woman with a dark secret.
ble. own infinite-loop system of “Us” doesn’t match “Get
That’s the film’s opening horror. Some questions get Out” but Peele will surely
prologue before shifting answered but others don’t. have more sunken places
to present day, and the The doubles arrive with only to investigate. And for that
scene, classically spooky, is slightly more reasoning we should be thrilled.q