Jordan Peele’s Us Is A Home-Invasion Story With A Satisfying Twist

By Monica Castillo


The anticipation for Jordan Peele’s Us has been steadily building since the project was reported last year. Or, more accurately, it's been there since Peele took house a screenwriting Oscar for his critically acclaimed, commercially successful, and hotly debated directorial debut, Get Out. Right after Friday night's (March 8) frenzied premiere of Us at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival, we can confirm that the horror flick lives up to the hype. Where the most terrifying parts of Get Out were steeped in modern day issues surrounding race In the United States, Peele’s second take at big-screen screams is an equally nuanced story that peels back the layers of everyday horrors — taking the residence invasion trope and turning it upside down to ask, "What if we're the monsters of our own story?"


The film follows the Wilsons, a regular American family member, on their less-than-idyllic vacation trip to Santa Cruz. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) isn’t a fan of the beach, although right after some playful coaxing from her spouse, Gabe (Winston Duke), she relents. They take their kids, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), to meet with another family member of four, the Tylers. Their day trip incidentally sets off a series of frightening events that, much like Get Out, will probably set off alarm bells.


in case you desire to go into the movie unspoiled, then you might aspire to pause here.


The generic premise of the evil in the film is that we are our own worst enemy. In Peele’s twisted vision, that manifests in warped copies of the Wilsons. They show up one night to confront their picture-perfect middle-class doppelgängers, jealous of the privileged lives they've enjoyed while their far less fortunate copies were kept underground in terrible conditions. The Wilsons are understandably unnerved by this order of outsiders — and even more so while they notice that the evil they fear looks exactly like them.


This, according to Peele, is a metaphor for America. “We’re in a time where we fear the other, whether it’s the mysterious invader that we think is going to come and kill us and take our jobs, or the faction we don’t live near, who voted an other way than us," he mentioned while in a post-premiere Q&A. "We’re all about pointing the finger. And I wanted to propose that perhaps the monster we really need to look at has our face. Perhaps the evil, it’s us."


Us, in several ways, is also a love letter to horror. The Wilsons join a long line of twins and doubles in horror movies like The Shining, Dead Ringers, and Body Double. (In fact, similar to Get Out, there really are several references to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining while in, plus it was even one of the films Peele asked the cast to watch before production commenced.) For actors, this sort of character work is usually a thrilling challenge. Nevertheless with the help of a director and storyteller like Peele — one who nurtures these kinds of horror tropes and devices, filtering them through his own worldview — it’s also the chance to take on a role that has more than one meaning.


the complete cast is stupendous, although Nyong'o is the star of the movie with an all-consuming efficiency as both the Wilson matriarch and her deranged other half, referred to as Red. Adelaide bears the unseen scars of childhood trauma; as a young girl, she wandered off from her parents along the Santa Cruz boardwalk and noticed herself face to face with a creepily silent little girl who looked just like her. So her apprehension toward a nice day at the beach with her family member is warranted. And Nyong’o throws herself into the dark madness of her doppelgänger, a woman with a voice hoarse from disuse, and like Adelaide, leads her family member throughout the course of the movie.


Where Adelaide is flighty and shaken by the events, her doppelgänger moves with freakishly smooth intention, the movie’s trademark golden scissors pointed down as both hands grasp closesly on the now-deadly weapon. Through both cautious editing and staging, Peele creates the illusion that the original family member members are facing off against their troubled selves, and Nyong’o has some of the tensest confrontations as Adelaide’s doppelgänger is the only one who can talk and tell her family’s sad side of the story. This setup also permits Nyong’o to be a little bit of an action star, staging a fight between her two characters that plays more like a dance, with one side acting more composed and the other wildly thrashing to survive.


For his part, Duke sheds the macho bravado of his breakout role in Black Panther for a persona that’s goofier, not quite as observant to all of the weird coincidences leading up to the attack although yet still fiercely protective of his family member any time it comes time for action. While Nyong'o’s efficiency is maybe the most eye-catching, Duke’s portrayal is also demanding, physically and mentally. As his evil double, Duke puts on a stone-faced furrowed brow, his shoulders are hunched up until it’s time to unleash his brute strength.


In between the two parents — of both the original family member and their unhinged doppelgängers — are the kids. Wright Joseph takes on a confident cool girl attitude as eldest Zora, someone who’s habitually mildly annoyed by her little brother and is routinely embarrassed by her dad’s corny jokes. Her doppelgänger has a weird good-girl vibe to her. Her hair is straightened and she’s obedient to her mother’s every command. With a Wolfman mask as a security blanket, Jason is the quieter child of the two. Where Zora may resort to her ability to outrun her doppelgänger, Jason outsmarts his evil, fire-happy double in the rules of their own existence.


"What are you people?” Adelaide asks halfway via film. Her double replies with a menacing smile, "We're Americans."


The true meaning beyond these doppelgängers will probably be the subject of debate as soon as the movie comes out later this month. Are they a metaphor for America? For a classist society? For the multiple unspeakable horrors buried deep in our nation's soil? Or is their origin not key because the film's final, satisfying twist?


there's a good chance the film's mythology won't be what stays with you in the hours, days, and months right after seeing Us. As an alternative, you'll remember the way Nyong'o moves, the way her face contorts into a singular sinister grimace, the way her tears fall — and the way she lets the mayhem completely consume her, frame by frame.