Us (Film Review)

Us is a good film that suffers from a case of too much information.  The film starts off with a wickedly enticing premise and set up.  The Wilson family—mother Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), father Gabe (Winston Duke), daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and son Jason (Evan Alex)—are vacationing at their beach house when confronted and captured by another family that looks exactly like them.  These “shadows” are deformed versions of themselves out for revenge—giving each family member a sporting chance (complete with a different challenge) as they enact their vengeance.  I really enjoy this aspect, though, unfortunately, it doesn’t last long as the family regroup and learn that they aren’t the only ones with shadow versions of themselves—with the entire country under attack by deformed doubles.

This is all great, thrilling entertainment.  I love the concept of the monsters and victims being portrayed by the same actors.  It lets the actors flex out their skills, being charming and funny on one end and creepy and disturbing on the other.  Us is never scary though—at least I never found it scary.  Director Jordon Peele is a master at great comedy, and this is both a strength and weakness here.  The trailer shows a scene where the shadow family stand outside the Wilson’s house before suddenly rushing towards them.  It’s a terrifying bit, and not at all how the film version plays out.  The film version uses specific jump cuts and soundtrack that exchanges fear for comedy:

Jason: There’s a family in our driveway.

Gabe: There’s not a family in our driveway.

The scene jumps straight to family in the driveway with smug music playing

The scene continues with Gabe going out to intimidate the family away, in a wacky dad-like manner, after telling the mom to not call the police and calm down.  When the family aren’t intimidated in the slightest, the dad walks back in, pauses for a moment, and then states; “…ok, let’s call the cops.”

The scene is still thrilling, but its newfound effective comedy removes all sense of horror found in the trailers.  The film, in general, is like this: a thriller that exchanges effective horror for effective comedy.  There’s a hilarious scene where the family debate on who will drive the getaway car based on who’s had the most kills.  For a while, there is one horrific element that remains in Us, and that’s the unknown.  For most of the film, the audience has no idea what these shadow versions are and where they came from—only that they’ve been coming out of the sewers.  Such uncertainty lets the mind come up with its own theories of why/how this is happening, creating a sense of dread and paranoia about this happening in real life.

The ambiguity is ruined, however, when everything is explained in great detail during the finale.  The explanation is really disappointing for multiple reasons.  It removes all sense of uncertainty, eliminating the film’s last element of horror.  The detailed explanation actually ends up leaving more questions than answers regarding plot points—creating fridge logic inconsistencies and idiot ball moments that were nonexistent when ambiguous.  The film’s “twist” is also a complete letdown compared to the ingeniously crafted surprise of Peele’s previous film Get Out.  Overall, Us is a peg down from Get Out, ending up being a good, yet nothing special comedy-thriller.