Review #192: Us (2019)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #47: Us (2019)

Hmm, whether or not to rate a movie higher because there's a character named Gabe in it? Ready or Not had one, but I already gave that movie a 10/10. I guess we'll see.

For anyone not familiar, Us is a film about a woman named Adelaide who travels with her family back to their summer home in Santa Cruz, where she had some kind of a traumatic experience as a child. After visiting the beach where the trauma occurred, they are shocked to see another family- seemingly evil mirror versions of themselves- attempting to invade their home and murder them and their neighbors. There's more to the story but it's hard to give more of a synopsis without spoiling much.

Jordan Peele's second foray into filmmaking definitely proved to be a strong one. I have some issues with this film (which I'll save until the end) but as far as horror goes, it's pretty amazing. I like how the traumatic event is kept pretty mysterious for the entire film, and on repeat viewings there's lots of little details that clue you in to what's going on behind the scenes. I'm viscerally terrified of home invasion movies, so that aspect of this film really hit home (no pun intended) and left much of the film scarier to me than it might be to other people. The way the dopplegangers act is so bizarre, so creepy, and fell so squarely in the uncanny valley (like how Tim Heidecker's character does the "going to shake your hand but instead brushes his hair at the last moment" thing, in such an unsettlingly inappropriate moment) that it's truly a sight to behold. I read in the IMDB trivia that Funny Games was one of the movies used among the cast and crew for a shared vocabulary (among several other movies, a few of which I'm watching for this bucket list) and it came as no surprise whatsoever, because of how creepy and unsettling that movie's vibe was along with this one. Us truly is an inspired film, the visual language is great, the cinematography is great, and the mythos (while a bit perplexing if you think about it too much) is really interesting, and is absolutely the stuff of nightmares.

So overall, I think this is a really good film- not perfect, but definitely an interesting watch, full of moments that you've never seen anywhere else and likely will never see anywhere else. It absolutely shows that Jordan Peele is here to stay, and I'm excited for whatever movies he makes in the future.

Now, I'm about to get VERY spoiler-y, so if you haven't seen the film and don't want spoilers, just skip the rest. I give this one a 9/10.

Okay, spoiler time.

So, obviously the majority of the plot of the film is a metaphor for class inequality, the Haves vs. the Have-Nots, for how the affluent often don't consider how the Other Half lives. Unlike Get Out, which was explicitly a commentary on racism, this one is about privilege (in whatever form that takes). I get that, that much is pretty clear.

But beyond just the metaphor, the explanation at the end of this film establishes the tethered as being actual, physical people, clones who live in an actual, physical place, and the logistics of this just make less and less sense to me the more I think about it. Are there millions or billions of these clones down there? How in the world is there enough space for them all? Where do they get all of the rabbits they eat for food? Where do they get their clothes from? Who built the billions of square feet of underground space it would take to house them all? If there's literally just a door in the back of a House of Mirrors that connects to this sprawling underground facility, why didn't they leave years ago?

It's really a shame, because if that part of the movie simply didn't exist- if no explanation was given for where the tethered came from beyond Adelaide saying "When I was a child I encountered a mirror version of myself", I feel like the movie would have been quantitatively better. Don't tell us how all of these mirror versions came from their world to ours, they just showed up one day, coming out of this hall of mirrors. I'm 100% fine with the idea of Adelaide's mirror self forcibly swapping places with her when she was a child. I just think it does the narrative zero favors whatsoever to say, "Oh, and these mirror people all exist underground, they're physical people created by the government (?) yet somehow are metaphysically linked to the people above". Just have it be something supernatural, bing bang boom, no further explanation needed. The explanation given feels like the kind of weird retcon you would normally get in the fourth or fifth movie in a franchise, not something at the end of the first movie when the first movie didn't even need it.

Also, I just don't understand what purpose the Hands Across America thing had to do with the plight of these dopplegangers. Again, don't even explain that. Don't tell me about the Hands Across America movement in the 80s. Just have a story where these evil mirror people show up one day, kill all of their opposites, and then inexplicably link hands across the country. Cut to credits, nothing else needed.

Anyway, like I said this is a great movie, and I think you should all watch it if you haven't. I was going to rate this an 8/10 but hey, there's a main character named Gabe. So have an extra point.

Overall Rating: 9/10 Great Names for a Boat

Fun Dialogue Detail: In the first scene with Adelaide as a child on the boardwalk, her mother tells her that there's a movie being filmed over by the carousel. This is most likely a reference to The Lost Boys, which was filmed around the same time and location this scene is set!