#did they just film the same day and not bring a Second Winston Layer for the outfit or....

[unproduciblesmackdown]

will roland as winston in billions 5x08

[briangroth27]

Us Review

I absolutely loved Us! The movie was more of a straight horror film than Jordan Peele’s Get Out and I liked the change in tone. Overall I do think I prefer Get Out, but Us is fantastic in its own right. Peele’s excellent at blending social commentary with horror, and it’s rare these days that I go into a movie with as much anticipation as I did walking into Us. Peele’s not new to Hollywood, but still, to have this much excitement going into this second movie is impressive! I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed!

Full Spoilers…

Lupita Nyong’o was fantastic in both her roles as Adelaide and Red! She deserves an Oscar for these performances, as she was able to masterfully bring two wildly disparate characters to life and blur the line between the two of them when needed. Winston Duke was very affable as Adelaide’s husband Gabe and brought menace to his Tethered doppelganger Abraham. Shahadi Wright Joseph (Zora/Umbrae) was also really strong as Adelaide’s daughter who was too cool to be bothered with their family vacation (yet never came off as an annoying teenager) and as her creepy running-obsessed mirror image. I do wish both she and Duke had been able to explore their doubles in more detail, because they get the least amount of material and it would’ve been cool to know more about them. Evan Alex, however, got to flex his range more than they did in his dual roles as Jason and Pluto. Given the way the script goes, he gets to blur the line between his two selves even more than Nyong’o, since it seems like no one can figure out which of them is the original and which is the Tethered. Elizabeth Moss was also solid in her smaller dual roles.

The idea of the Tethered—they were created as part of a government experiment to control their counterparts on the surface—was a very cool premise. I think Peele could’ve given us a few more concrete details about the project itself, but I don’t think there are any logistical questions that really stood out as bothering me and there weren’t any “but what about…” plot-hole moments for me while watching it either, so I was satisfied with what we got. Anything that doesn’t seem to make sense in terms of the government’s plan also has a built-in explanation: it was a failed experiment, after all, so those details could’ve contributed to its downfall. The 80’s Hands Across America display (meant to show solidarity for and spread awareness of homelessness in the country) was a clever touchstone and bridge to the class discussion Peele’s having with this film. Reminding us that the lower classes are Americans too, that they still exist even if we choose not to look for them, and that we impact each other’s lives both through action and inaction are all points that resonate strongly here. The idea of using the lower class to manipulate everyone else cleverly taps into the way that the real-world government/media/capitalism uses the less fortunate as an example to scare the middle classes into obeying the system—“keep contributing or you’ll be forgotten, you’ll lose everything, and it will be your fault, you slacker”—and spins it in an original and very satisfying horror tale. We have billionaires and real-world governments that could use their wealth to end homelessness, but allow homelessness to continue both out of greed and an attempt to vilify "laziness" by making the less-fortunate into a warning to those of us who live on the surface that if we ever stop producing, we'll end up forgotten on the streets and in abandoned tunnels.

I loved that Peele let the Tethered uprising grow into a full-on apocalypse with their own Hands Across America: that was a very cool way to sell the “no one is safe because you’ve all ignored these people, so you’re at least a little complicit” idea and to up the stakes considerably. Literally making the Tethered into doppelgangers of the “real” people on the surface also serves to point the finger on us a little more by reminding us that it could easily have been us down there if one or two things had changed. As to why the Tethered didn’t rise up sooner (a question I saw asked a lot around the film’s release), I think they were a people without hope until Red gave them a mission and the idea that they could be free. They needed someone to show them that they had an equal claim to the country and could take it by force if needed, and their twisted version of Hands Across America was a great visualization of that. The twist between Adelaide and Red was just as compelling, and it allowed Red to prove to the Tethered that they were the same as the people on the surface, not lesser. I’m definitely of the opinion that Adelaide always knew who she was and that a fear of revenge was her real reason for not wanting to go back to the beach (even if she suppressed some of the details). I know people asked why the real Adelaide didn’t try escaping as a child, and I think that’s because of what made Red special—their connection was slightly different, like they had a more even split of their soul, so young Adelaide could more quickly fall into Red’s role (a perfect metaphor for how easy it would be for any of us to end up with nothing). Regardless of the specific mechanics of that relationship, I loved that on one level, everyone in the movie is a victim of circumstance (even before you get into what Adelaide did to Red, which is a solid parallel to everyday people taking what’s theirs instead of caring about who they step on to get there). It was haunting to see how easily the humans could take on traits of their Tethered counterparts: that was a great way of dramatizing that they could be any of us if circumstances were different, and blurring the line between Adelaide and her family’s personalities and interests with those of their Tethered counterparts makes total sense if they’re sharing a soul in some fashion. Embracing such similarities between the heroes and villains is a hard line to walk when you want to root for the family to kill the Tethered before they’re killed themselves, yet you’re constantly reminded that the Tethered are victims too. Not innocent ones, but they didn't ask to be created in crazy science tunnels and then left there, forgotten. Peele nailed walking that line.

Based on what’s onscreen, I could go either way with Jason and Pluto having been switched a year before the events of the movie (a popular theory online), but ultimately I don’t think they were. I think Jason’s idiosyncrasies were character quirks that were red herrings, not clues. Jason does control Pluto, but that seemed to be after they “synched up” while in the closet and we also saw Gabe control Abraham when he adjusted his glasses. I also didn’t read Jason’s expression when Adelaide kills a Tethered or at the end in the ambulance as looks of recognition that they were the same, but of dark realization that she was not like him. However, it could be a cool commentary on people forgetting where they came from and no longer caring about the lower classes once they’ve got their share if Adelaide really did forget who she was and this is something that happens to all Tethered once they switch with their doubles without killing them: they start to forget who they were while their double remembers. Maybe Pluto really was swapped and the end is a Thing situation where neither he nor his mother know who is real. Either way, my sister pointed out that not only was Jason’s Tethered named after the god of the underworld, but no one can decide if Pluto is a planet or not, just like we can’t decide who the original Jason is. I think that’s perfect!

The pacing was great and the flashbacks were woven in very well, expertly hinting at the Adelaide/Red reveal but never feeling like they were obtrusive. Peele also found a way to get a lot of levity into the film, which was a great and welcome way to release some of the tension before ratcheting it up again. I liked the setting and all the spaces Peele found to shoot in to create a wide variety of locations, from the suburban nightmare of a home invasion to a war-torn street to the eerie funhouse “portal” to the Tethered’s underground world. The music was perfect, taking Lunitz’ “Five on it” and turning it into a twisted, creepy, and versatile version of itself that could both heighten the tension or highlight our heroes at their coolest, mirroring the characters’ split with their Tethered counterparts nicely.

I love that there are a lot of layers to Us, allowing audiences to puzzle things out for themselves without feeling like it’s got holes that we’re struggling to assign meaning to. Peele’s made another one of my favorite horror films with this movie and I can’t wait to watch it again on Blu-ray when it comes out in a few weeks.  I’ve also been loving Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot and I can’t wait to see what he does in his next feature!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!