Jordan Peele's US (2019) Review

Director Jordan Peele continues his horror crusade with US, an imperfect gem that improves on his directorial debut, Get Out. The premise here is painfully simple. A family on vacation comes face to face with their doppelgangers whom seemingly have evil intents. It is a setting tried before in film yet rarely with success. Usually the problem comes about when it comes time to explain WHY these people exist at all. Smartly, Peele eschews full on explanation with metaphors and subtext and does not bore us with tropes and subtext. Don't get me wrong, Peele does attempt to explain and does an intriguing job of it, that is as long as you don't look at it too long or hard.

Each scene is well crafted here and the acting is pretty good. The opening sequence starts things off with a bang as Adalaide, the family's matriarch in a young memory meets her double in a house of mirrors narrowly escaping. Flash forward as the Wilson,s are fighting for their lives and slowly uncovering the truths about these dark mirrors of "us". The pacing is methodical but wonderfully conducted by Peele who is clearly NOT making the same movie as Get Out. The twist comes late but not before Red (Adalaide's doppleganger) explains their origins. It is a well contained story that provides a social commentary mired in the murky depths of the mystery.

All is not wine and roses of course and two stand out issues nagged at me a bit but as I watched, each had their purpose. The get together with their white friends on the beach (yes I said white friends) provided a very awkward situation as the characters had no chemistry to be believable as friends but as I watched it unfold and thought about it, I believe Peele did this on purpose. In what I thought was a horrible move, Red,s voice is so gaspy and forced I hated it almost as much as the Babadook brat UNTIL the reason is revealed later.

Of course the real meat here is the ending and the explanation which is threadbare and full of holes. The ending was good but Peele (through Red's speech) revealed the reasoning behind the "tethers" and a lot of it just doesn't add up. You can dissect it all you want but will just end up with more questions. The brilliance here though is that Peele obviously did this on purpose giving exposition and reasoning behind a crazy, out there story of the doppelgangers and just how many are out there, where they live and why they are here. It's just enough to divide audiences and bring out tons of conversation. In fact the weakest point of the film is Red's overly detailed account of the dark doubles as it takes away some mystery.

Jordan Peele created a psychological thriller and wrapped it in the shawl of a mystery that can't be solved completely yet keeps the intrigue and wonder at a very high level. This isn't Peele's masterpiece but at this rate it's coming soon. I for one, loved this and if you see it through and peer not too deeply into the abyss, you will too!

4/5 stars

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