Us Review
By Colton Gomez | 04/15/24 | 11:16 P.M. Mountain Time
Horror, Mystery | Rated R | 2 hr 1 min | Film Release Date: March 22, 2019
“Us” was written, produced, and directed by Jordan Peele, the same creative behind his Oscar-winning screenplay for “Get Out.” Unfortunately, nothing in his newest venture has the same gravity as “Get Out.” This film is hindered by its underdeveloped characters and heavy focus on plot. It’s a confusing film with not much to offer, and what it does offer only leaves you unsatisfied and scratching your head.
Lupita Nyong’o stars as Addy, who has a traumatic past in which she got lost at the beach in Santa Cruz and ran into her doppelgänger. Scaring her speechless, she develops PTSD and takes some time to come back to normal. Now grown up, Addy is married to Gabe (Winston Duke), an unobservant and simple-minded person who really likes his boat and doesn’t seem to pay much mind to the emotional needs of his wife. They have two children, Jason (Evan Alex) and Umbrae (Shahadi Wright Joseph).
While vacationing at their Santa Cruz beach house, Addy experiences some troubling emotions, stirred up by revisiting the site of her trauma, and doesn’t wish to stay there any longer. In the heat of her unrest, a family of four comes by to stand in their driveway and hold hands, staring them down from outside. They force their way inside and appear to be exact copies of Addy’s family, all wearing red jumpsuits, one glove, and each with their own pair of scissors. These versions of Addy’s family can only speak in grunts and clicks, except Addy’s doppelgänger, whose voice comes out hoarse and unpracticed.
Not knowing what they want, the family is attacked and separated until each one is pursued by their look-a-like. The next while of the film is encountering their doppelgängers, getting away, reuniting the family, getting attacked, separated, uniting, until they survive the night. The next day sees them driving through an empty town until they come across a roadblock set as a trap by their surviving doppelgängers. Jason is taken by the Addy doppelgänger and the real Addy tracks them down to an underground tunnel system, where she learns in an extremely exposition heavy scene just what is happening.
The end of the film is confusing and not clever. It doesn’t make any sense if you think about it for longer than ten seconds. What can be seen as a commentary on the good and bad sides of each individual person is disappointingly blatant. The majority of the subtext in the film is extremely shallow. Too many scenes are filled with fighting, screaming, running, and characters making stupid decisions to allow the runtime to keep running. Nyong’o is the only actor here to stand out and she did the best she could with what she had to work with. She’s enjoyable to watch as she fills her performance with interesting subtextual nuance and emotional depth. However, there was no chance for any other actor to shine as the characters in this film are all stunted in their development. They get one note to sing and even the most talented actors would only be able to give a forgettable, less annoying performance.
There’s not much to be said about this film. It’s shallow, the themes are so in your face, you’ll be searching for something deeper to latch on to. When you don’t find it and get frustrated by how confused you are, you’ll be disappointed with what the film actually gives you. That’s not to say there are no interesting ideas, it’s just that the interesting ideas were posed and left to die without any satisfying development.
I was bored through the majority of the film, specifically when the other family shows up and starts attacking the family we know. A lot of what happens is just seeing characters, one by one, fight and fend off their opposites. Attack, hit, leave. Attack, dodge, leave. Attack, stupid decision, leave. Attack, attack, attack. After the first encounter, the pace is immediately reset by seeing the same thing happen to another character. Then another, then another, then another. Boring, nothing is happening.
This idea might have worked better as a short story, really short. It was clearly underdeveloped, and Peele was most likely feeling the pressure to deliver after his debut project was a huge success. This film was rushed, cornered, and didn’t deliver. The spoiler specifics of this film may make you want to rewatch it but it will still fall just as flat.
We know Peele is a good director. We know he’s a good writer. Had he been afforded the time necessary to work on this script further or been confident enough in this idea, it could have been great. I think it’s an unfortunate side effect of finding success that way in the film business. You got an idea that made money that people liked? Do it again. Now, please.