Us (2019): written and directed by Jordan Peele; starring Lupita Nyong'o (Adelaide Wilson), Winston Duke (Gabe Wilson), Shahadi Wright Joseph (Zora Wilson), Evan Alex (Jason Wilson), Elizabeth Moss (Kitty Tyler), and Tim Heidecker (Josh Tyler):
Jordan Peele again demonstrates an impressive ability to rework genre tropes for shock and social commentary. Here, we start with the doppelganger and end with... well, that would be telling. Peele's first two movies, this and Get Out (2017), have melded genre and social commentary, and been critically and financially successful. It seems to me that Peele is still developing, though, that his best work lies ahead if he stays the course.
The childhood trauma of Lupita Nyong'o's character bleeds into the present when she and her family (the charming Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Evan Alex) visit her grandparents' cottage in coastal California for the first time in decades. Something happened in a creepy house of mirrors at the local amusement park long ago. Now it's about to happen again.
Nyong'o is terrific as a dominating mother and wife. Winston Duke makes an affable Everydad forced to summon reserves of courage and ass-kicking to protect his family. And daughter Shahadi and son Alex are no slouches when it comes to monster-fighting. If the things they face really are monsters.
With about 25 minutes to go, Us veers into the territory of the totally loopy. To be fair, so did many Twilight Zone episodes in the final Act. There's maybe a bit too much evident straining to make the social commentary explicit and concrete here. But at least there is social commentary. And rabbits! Keep an eye on the videos on that shelf at the beginning -- they are relevant! Recommended.
Bird Box (2018): adapted by Eric Heisserer from the novel by Josh Malerman; directed by Susanne Bier; starring Sandra Bullock (Malorie), Trevante Rhodes (Tom), John Malcovich (Douglas), Sarah Paulson (Jessica), Jacki Weaver (Cheryl), Rosa Salazar (Lucy), Danielle Macdonald (Olympia), Lil Rey Howery (Charlie), and BD Wong (Greg):
Apocalyptic horror gives us monsters who cause people to commit suicide when they see them. Daredevil, where art thou?
The movie generates a fair amount of tension throughout, though improbabilities related to Sandra Bullock's ability to navigate the outside world without recourse to sight eventually swamp all credibility.
Alas, Bird Box is also one of those movies that curdles somewhat in the remembering. This is partially because at the heart is a very, very conservative story of how a single woman finds redemption in the ARMS OF A GOOD MAN and MOTHERHOOD.
Speaking as someone with bipolar disorder, I also found some stuff involving the mentally ill is tremendously iffy in the most retrograde way imaginable (and not needed in the story). And not one but two self-sacrificing African-American men! And one of them is literally named 'Tom'! Get out! By the end, you may feel Bamboozled. Lightly recommended.
Get Out (2017): written and directed by Jordan Peele; starring Daniel Kaluuya (Chris Washington), Alison Williams (Rose Armitage), Catherine Keener (Dr. Armitage), Bradley Whitford (Dr. Armitage), Caleb Landry Jones (Dean Armitage), Marcus Henderson ('Walter'), Betty Gabriel ('Georgina'), LilRey Howery (Rod Williams of the TSA), and Stephen Root (Jim Hudson):
A zippy, suspenseful horror movie about racial relations. Rod Serling, who did so many allegorical stories on The Twilight Zone, would be proud of Jordan Peele's creepy, satirical story about an extraordinarily bad visit to the country by art photographer Chris (a great Daniel Kaluuya) to meet the parents (creepy Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) of his girlfriend of four months (Alison Williams, perfectly cast).
Peele builds the suspense gradually over the first half, lightening some scenes with comic-relief TSA agent/Chris's best pal Rod on the phone (one of the jokes is that Rod's paranoid fantasies about what rich white people want with black people is neither paranoid nor fantasy). The ending descends into cathartic violence that seems to comment on both current events and the tragic ending of George Romero's seminal Night of the Living Dead, with its heroic African-American protagonist.
Peele has a nice director's eye, giving us colour-saturated scenes of privileged gentility and night-time scenes of startling horror. The movie also nods to The Wicker Man (the original), Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain" in interesting ways. I think Peele's just-announced Twilight Zone reboot should be a blast. Highly recommended.
