500 word film review

Film review/Auetuership – US (2019)  by auteur director Jordan Peele (Spoilers)

Jordan Peele is a well known American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. ‘Us’ is Jordan Peele’s latest horror/thriller. The film follows the Wilson family, being attacked by their evil doppelganger counterparts called “The Tethered”. Jordan Peele is best known for his previous, extremely successful, multiple award-winning, horror film “Get Out”. “Get Out” won Oscars, Golden Globes, Baftas plus loads more and was labelled one of the most successful horror films of our time. Having already showcased his incredible talent and ability to produce such high quality [horror] films with “Get Out” it set the standards for this film (Us) extremely high. Which I personally don’t think was met and was a little bit disappointed.

I believe ‘Get out’ and ‘Us’ is what established Jordan Peele to be an auteur director. Not just because he makes horror movies but also because he also has his own personal style by casting majority-black casts and incorporating themes of racism throughout. This creates a wonderful deeper meaning to his filmmaking process rather than just making a horror film to scare audiences and partly why he is so succesful.

I believe because of the incredibly high standards Jordan Peele has shown off previously, that it mistakenly leads critics and everyday audiences to watch ‘Us’ assuming it is going to be at the same standard, rather than watching it as a stand-alone film with an unbiased view. I believe that if ‘Us’ was directed by a new, unknown director and not Jordan Peele, audiences would have given it a lot more criticism and it wouldn’t have been nearly as popular or highly-rated.

To talk about the film alone, from an unbiased view, I would say that whilst the first half of the film is continuously scary, intriguing and eerie it was very dialogue-heavy and the pacing is very slow. There is almost no action or build up until an hour into the film. I felt like I was just anticipating for a major event to happen rather than it having any real meaning.

From the outset, we are merely introduced into the Wilson’s family’s life, only looking into their lives and not into any deeper development of the characters themselves as you would normally expect at the beginning of most films. Without this it makes me, as a viewer,  not feel a connection with or to be rooting for the family as much I would expect, especially in a ‘good’ v ‘bad’ storyline. This just made the beginning feel very slow-paced and boring for me.

During the action scenes, the families actions seemed so unbelievably unrealistic, pulling me, as the audience, out of being immersed in the film and thinking how stupid they are being. For example, the dad goes to the boat with a single flare gun as if its somehow going to help anybody out or when the daughter is scared for her life, running past a row of houses doesn’t even call for help or go into any of the houses or when the doppelganger father was able to get in the boat, immediately start it and drive, how does the doppelganger that lived underground his entire life know how to ride a boat or even start immediately without looking or questioning it. Once I had been pulled out of the world of the film and no longer immersed in it, I was realising how laughable the story was. My overall expression during the horror film was confused rather than scared.

I was disappointed in the second half as felt the film was leading up to a major event but instead was left with so many plot holes and ambiguity that you don’t get any satisfaction or conclusion. And with a twist, you could’ve almost predicted before watching the film made me realise that this isn’t a very scary movie and makes you not want to watch it again as it would be boring watching it knowing the twist whereas. I normally find watching movies again, once I find out the twist, really interesting. Some movies are even are more interesting watching it the second time knowing the twist. But in my opinion, the twist that (spoilers) the mum – Adeline was actually the doppelganger all along, doesn’t actually change anything. It doesn’t make anything scarier or more interesting, so that was a bit of a letdown, especially as the whole movie had been leading up to it.

Of course, when we watch films. we watch them with a pinch of salt, allowing and ignoring the unrealistic technicalities of what makes them unrealistic (i.e. unjustified passing of time/change of locations/plot holes/major coincidences etc.) because we know the film is for entertainment and not to convey real life. However, in “Us” the plot holes and confusion for the viewer are far too large and far too unrealistic to even overlook.  Whilst some ambiguity is normally great and even recommended in most cases, this film leaves so much ambiguity by the end that it is almost laughable.

In terms of the specific plot holes, the most obvious ones being the illogical almost ridiculous idea that there is one doppelganger for every person in the world and they live underground without anyone knowing about them.

They mentioned tunnels as if there’s enough tunnel space to for 300 million doppelgangers underground. Even if there was, who made all these tunnels? and without anyone from the real world noticing? Plus obvious things like how do they eat? get water? where do they sleep? or go to the toilet? where do they get the exact same clothes as their counterpart wears every day? They are seen wearing the exact same clothing as the real-life counterparts like a Micheal Jackson thriller top – where does a doppelganger get this t-shirt? and the same hair clips? and hairstyle? How do they even know what their counterpart is doing or what they look like?  It is just not possible if they’re living underground their whole life. How do they keep the same bodyweight as their counterparts? even things like when do they shave? or cut their hair to always look exactly like their counterpart? How did they come up with this plan to take over the real world when they can’t even physically talk or communicate with each other?, even if they could talk to each other, how would they let every single one of the 300 million doppelgangers know about this plan?  all of this with no one in charge of them?. Where did they get 300 million red uniform jumpsuits from? and 300 million of the iconic scissors from? and a right-handed leather glove each? Where did the doppelgangers even come from? Who looks after the baby doppelgangers? Do they reproduce and give birth in these tunnels?  How did they get up to the normal world? Is there millions of hatches on the ground to get from the underground tunnels to the real world? if so surely they would have been seen coming to and from these hatches?  In the flashback scene of the doppelganger Adeline Wilson kidnapping the real version of herself,  how did she take her to the tethered tunnels?  Was this through an underground door/hatch? if so, no-one at the carnival saw her dragging a body down a hatch underground? and even so, the carnival is on the beach, so this is then suggesting the underground tunnels are also under the ocean too? and this entire kidnapping scene happening in the time the dad plays a single game of whack-a-mole at the carnival without noticing his daughter has disappeared, been kidnapped and replaced again?

The rabbits underground suggest their only food source is these rabbits, which means someone must be there to kill (or even cook) the rabbits? which means they’re not doing exactly what their real-life counterpart is doing? even so, where do the rabbits come from, enough rabbits to feed 300 million people every day?  Who is feeding the rabbits? or breeding them? or looking after them? and with all that said, even if their only food source was rabbit,  that would easily, quickly lead to malnutrition!

And then ‘The tethered’ also mention they have been around for Generations which means pre-1900’s, this brings even more questions. Where do the dead bodies of ‘the tethered’ go when they die, or do they die? if the do die, do they die of the same cause their counterpart dies of? if so, how is that possible? i.e. if they’re counterpart got run over, what do they die of?

I am not saying it is a bad film, from a filmmaking perspective; Jordan Peele has delivered a well-directed, well shot (for the most part) and well ???? film and the performance of all the actors especially “Lupita Nyong'”  has to be acknowledged as oscar-worthy. Acting as both the doppelganger and her real self. And even though it is a very non-scary horror film, it at least does not rely entirely on Jumpscares or dramatically gory scenes to try and scare the audience which typical horror movies do.

Many people try and find a deep meaning within the chaos of this film but it is pointless because you can find a deep meaning in literally anything if you try to and doesn’t mean anything.

In short, the film is a Jordan Peele original, it has some great acting, it is thought-provoking and admittedly creates huge discussion afterwards (even if its due to confusion, but each viewers interpretation is different, which is extremely interesting and one of my favourite things about films). I would recommend watching  ‘Us’ to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, the impressive acting performances alone is worth watching but at the same time, if you don’t want to waste 2 hours of your life, i would say that the 2-minute trailer is almost better than the film itself and saves you 2 hours of your life.

 

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