"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library" - Jorge Luis Borges

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Watching: US

Year: 2019
Rating: R
Having not yet seen Get Out (I know, I know; it's on the list), Jordan Peele's rep and a great cast (totally in love with Lupita!) drew me to this bizarre, tension-filled (and at times disturbing) film starring Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide, a woman who suffered a traumatic event in her childhood who suddenly finds herself thrust down Memory Lane again when her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) insists on taking them and their two kids to the very beachfront that - unbeknownst to him - his wife remembers all too well. From their very arrival there Adelaide has the growing sensation that something very, very bad is about to happen, and sure enough that same night the family is confronted by a group of four strangers in masks and red jumpsuits, just standing in the dark outside their rented home, who suddenly force their way into the house, where it is discovered - once the masks come off - that each intruder is the exact physical doppelganger of one of the family members they have come to kill (each bearing a huge pair of gold shears to do the job with, no less). Things get super-weird from here, in a plot that's not only un-explainable in the context of this review but would also contain spoilers. Suffice to say, Us is a twisty, truly bizarre horror story with a tremendous amount of subtext and a twist ending I somehow didn't fully see coming. Director Jordan Peele drops enough hints along the way, giving viewers an ending that may be a head-scratcher to those who haven't been paying attention ... but boy, is this a film worth paying attention to, and while not perfect Peele's execution of this strange, somewhat open-ended story made (for me) for one of the most intriguing, thought-provoking, and at times seriously creepy films I'd seen in some time. Oh yeah, and the soundtrack kicks ass, too.  8/10 stars

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