Us (Jordan Peele, 2019) wr. Jordan Peele; Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker; A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them. In order to get away from their busy lives, the Wilson family takes a vacation to Santa Cruz, California with the plan of spending time with their friends, the Tyler family. On a day at the beach, their young son Jason almost wanders off, causing his mother Adelaide to become protective of her family. That night, four mysterious people break into Adelaide's childhood home where they're staying. The family is shocked to find out that the intruders look like them, only with grotesque appearances.
A twist on a couple of familar genres which Peele's script successfully defamiliarizes brilliantly. In that regard, it's not inaccurate to see this as following logically on from Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017), which won Peele the screenplay Oscar - and three other nominations. This one ranges more widely, and in my opinion the ending sacrifices logic for intrigue, which I think will cause it to do less well than the earlier film. But I've already said too much.
There's a very good review by Leigh Singer in Sight&Sound.
See also: Interview with Jordan Peele, also in Sight&Sound.
Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 2 October, 2019 | Now: 7 December, 2022