Us
Ever since I saw Us, I haven’t been able to sleep.
Okay, that was partially clickbait. Although the film was a two-hour nonstop stimulant for my anxiety, it is far from nightmare inducing.
Unfortunately, the real horror begins long after your initial viewing. Attempting to interpret Us is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure where you spotlight your favorite deliberately engineered detail in the film, engage in a near endless search for its meaning, and eventually snowball your thesis into a conclusion that “sounds right” but leaves you almost as uneasy as you were in the film itself. Even now, thousands of conspiracies are floating around the internet, but all feel like a polygonal peg just barely being squeezed into a round hole. In the pursuit of the round peg, I might actually go insane.
The most unsettling aspect of Us is that every second of imagery, dialogue, and silence appears achingly deliberate. Knowing that everything had a purpose made every confusing detail a goldmine of possible symbolisms; my memory held each observation at gunpoint until I could come up with some form of explanation. The film is generous at times, offering a moment to catch one’s breath and read between the lines, but soon becomes a gushing waterfall of rich yet unfathomable meaning. Even now, my recollections of the movie come to me not in manageable sips, but overwhelming gulps of unprocessed information: unexpected twists, symbolic wide shots, and sweat-inducing monologues. There are moments when you are expected to be scared (and you will be, I promise), yet those were almost relaxing in hindsight: I immediately understood the motive behind the transparently “scary” scenes. The most hair-raising were the scenes that seemed to go on for too long, the close ups of seemingly ordinary objects, and the hyperfixation on details that appeared wholly irrational, forcing even the most passive viewer to stop and ask, “What was that for?”
Beyond my seemingly futile quest to find the “plot behind the plot,” there is no simple praise of Us other than noting its display of powerhouse talent, including the heart and soul of the film: Lupita Nyong’o. To describe the extent of her skill in precisely shaping her character would mean spoiling Us. Nyong’o’s character, Adelaide, initially appeared to be a confusing hotbed of contradictions, divergent actions, and staccato transitions. In the beginning of the film, I had dismissed Adelaide to be poorly written- her reactions appeared irrational, motivated by constant fear in even the most mundane settings, and her dialogues were infinitely intricate riddles that seemed to have no real answer. However, throughout Us, facets of Adelaide are explained in isolation as her character is deconstructed into individual pieces that come together to create a masterfully developed persona. Again, a testament to the eerie calculations of Peele’s work: you are never given the upper hand on understanding Adelaide’s mind, not realizing why she acts the way she does until exactly when the director wants you to.
Her mastery of the role becomes even more incredible when Adelaide’s shadow, Red, comes into play. The shadows that exist in the film are soulless copies of each character that live underground but are tethered to the original character’s soul, seeking to lead their own lives as independently as the more fortunate. While Adelaide is classic Nyong’o, effortlessly gorgeous and almost unnaturally demure, Red is anything but. In fact, Nyong’o’s performance of Red is, without a doubt, the reason why Us is so scary: sans eyebrows and sporting shaved hair, crazy eyes, and stained teeth, she will undoubtedly succeed in filling your mind with all things ugly. I found myself uncomfortably unable to focus on anything but her voice, which sounds exactly like how salt being poured into an unnoticed wound feels. Every subsequent action that Red took was disarming — it was impossible to predict what lurked beneath her glassy irises. The internal warfare between Adelaide and her copy is accentuated by how the portrayals of both characters were wildly distinctive yet impossibly convergent; either of those roles in isolation could have been Nyong’o’s magnum opus.
Beyond Nyong’o’s transformative performance, the entirety of the cast shine in their depiction of their characters and shadows. Elisabeth Moss, in particular, provides a deeply beautiful portrayal of her shadow, Dahlia: a macabre creature filled with insecurities, insanity, and want, seeking desperately to just be human. Additionally, the two younger actors, Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex, do an incredible job of delivering what horror fanatics love most: scary children. In a film that is anything but traditional horror, the classic “creepy kid” roles allow for periods of unbridled fear free of potential deeper meaning.
What makes Us so important in today’s climate is its commentary on our often arbitrary distinction between “us” and the “other” (the title Us appears to double as the “U.S.”). Instead of the narrative of the deserving and the scorned, Us believes that those who prosper are often simply lucky, while those who suffer are treated under a harsh dichotomy enforced by the complicit nature of the prosperous. We are constantly being controlled by status quos that, to us, may appear as immutable truths, but are merely the artificial machinations of those before us. In many circumstances, we are willing to live our lives just as complicity as Adelaide, unaware of the world just beneath us. Even though the shadows in the film are outwardly horrifying, they are definitely not the ultimate villains of this story. Because, as the young Jason Wilson snarkily remarks in the beginning of the film: “Every time you point a finger, there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.” Us might not be for the film critics that love to boast about their nuanced understanding of a movie right after a one-time viewing. It certainly isn’t for people who like their films plain and easy. However, if you love Jordan Peele, Lupita Nyong’o, thrillers, classic movies, and a continuous 2-hour mental challenge, Us might be right at the intersection of all your hopes and dreams.
And, if you’re Jordan Peele, please DM me. I just wanna talk.
