Us (2019)

They say the greatest enemy that every one of us has is ourselves.

America, this is your life. Us is Jordan Peele's second feature film as a horror auteur director after shocking and thrilling audiences two years ago with Get Out. The Jordan Peele many of us knew from MadTV and Key and Peele is no longer. He's evolved into a modern day John Carpenter, and damn it, we've needed one. This time, he cranks up the scares to 11 and leaves you squirming in your seats and then leaving the theatre with so many questions. Because, whereas Get Out was an obvious and straight forward satire on the crumbling facade of American race relations, Us is way more ambiguous with what it is trying to say. For that, Us is a strange, fascinating and wickedly cool film and something horror fans and just plain film fans will remember for a very long time.

Santa Cruz. 1986. A little girl curiously ventures away from the boardwalk (now virtually guaranteed to be a Hollywood tourist attraction) and discovers an ominous fun house-of-mirrors right beside the beach. Inside, to her terror, she meets a sinister carbon copy of herself with a mischievous smile. Cut to 30 years later, the little girl is now a happily married mother of two, traveling with her family for a weekend getaway in Santa Cruz. Ho boy. Her family wants to go to the same beach she did all those years ago. She cant bear to stomach it. She gives in and goes along with them, only for some very strange, sinister things to start happening to them all over again.

Us inhabits a world of dualities. Or more specifically, every person in this movie has an evil version of themselves. The so-called "untethered" that are out to vengefully take the place of their original host body. They are us, and we are them. They live underneath the human world, among multiplying rabbits. What is Peele trying to say? There isn't a definitive answer, but any of your best guesses is entirely possible. Is it a comment on self-loathing and the depression epidemic that has swept up so many in our generation? Is it a personified metaphor of the dark side that lurks within all of us? Is it's message more political (U.S.) regarding issues of class and social status? Is it a statement on America's violent upbringing? Or a satire on what is perceived to be normal and conformist in our society? Whatever your point of view may be, Us can conveniently be interpreted that way, and perhaps that was the entire point.

This movie is fantastic and Jordan Peele is a born filmmaker. Lupita Nyong'o gives a breathtaking, terrifying performance. She is the actress to beat in 2019. I laughed, I cringed, I walked out with a big smile on my face. Us is for you, me, and everyone you know. See it.