STARTING CONVERSATIONS
JORDAN PEELE FOLLOWS UP GET OUT WITH ANOTHER BONE CHILLING THRILLER, US, STARRING LUPITA NYONG’O AND WINSTON DUKE
Following the world premiere of Jordan Peele’s Us at the SXSW Film Festival, the consensus response seemed to involve two somewhat conlicting impulses.
One was to talk about the ilm. A lot. With its layered storytelling, nuanced performances and surprising twists, the movie is quite purposefully designed to start conversations. The second impulse was to see the movie again as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to prove or deny the various theories and readings that sprang from all that talking.
In the movie Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke play a married couple, Adelaide and Gabe Wilson, who ind themselves and their two children under siege at their vacation home by people who seem to be evil-twin versions of themselves (dubbed Red and Abraham in the ilm’s end credits), who come to be known as the Tethered. Eventually much is revealed about what is going on, but the ilm’s deeper meanings will likely inspire months of conjecture and speculation.
“I think my favourite thing is the idea that people will leave ready to have a conversation with whoever they’re with,” Peele said during a Q&A after the premiere.
“On the broader strokes of things, this movie is about this country,” he continued. “I was stricken with the fact that we are in a time where we fear the other, whether it is the mysterious invader that we think is going to come and kill us, take our jobs, or the faction that we don’t live near that voted a different way than us. We’re all about pointing the inger.
“And I wanted to suggest that maybe the monster we really need to look at has our face, maybe the evil is us.”