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[Open Spoilers] The Movie called "Us" made by Jordan Peele IS a horror movie
Raijin Quickfoot
I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
Just got done watching this movie and it was predictably fantastic.
There's a lot to discuss and unpack though so I wanted a thread.
Let's keep major spoilers spoilered but if you haven't seen the movie yet I would expect the discussion here to be a little bit loose with minor plot details.
Do not spoil the movie. Go see it
GO SEE IT
There's a lot to discuss and unpack though so I wanted a thread.
Let's keep major spoilers spoilered but if you haven't seen the movie yet I would expect the discussion here to be a little bit loose with minor plot details.
Do not spoil the movie. Go see it
GO SEE IT
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Pisses me off.
Are we all horror movies?
I liked this movie.
he was real good
I really liked how he sold the exasperation of having to go kill this guy, can you believe it!?
Also Winston Duke was great. He's both terrifying as the dopple-him, and really charming as protagonist-him. Everybody was great!
Him and Elizabeth Moss were both fucking great.
The scene in the bedroom of him climbing on the bed looking for action was absolutely perfect.
also:
I've read a few ideas that all make sense.
- the movie doesn't make narrative sense by design, as there is so much going on with who each lupita actually is. theme absolutely outweighs the plot making sense
- when i finally realized all the tethered were dressed like michael jackson because that was an image of fear to red/adelaide, i got so excited.
- tim heidecker's tethered also being a colossal douchebag was the highlight of the movie
- hands across america only took 15 minutes. adelaide disappeared for 15 minutes. the cops were fifteen minutes away. did i miss any other fifteens?
I thought they were 14 minutes away?
Maybe I misheard it.
Presumably because
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Ok. I missed the first time then.
Something my partner pointed out regarding wardrobe -
such a great bit of imagery
Detailed, mostly formed thoughts:
Now that that's out of the way, I can talk about all the stuff I liked.
There's a really cool thing with the child psychologist, when she's telling Adelaide's parents how to try to help her, and recommends dance in the process. Obviously dance becomes a big thing for her, but it doesn't seem to help her open up, to tell the truth about what she saw that day, as shown by the fact that her husband doesn't know about what happened even in the general sense, and she doesn't even really know herself.
Except Adelaide isn't Adelaide at that point, she's Red. And it does help the real Adelaide, the only person in the underworld who has seen the outside world. She learns to express herself through dance, and she opens up, and that leads to this entire string of events. Where previously an underworld doppelganger could only realize the truth of the self through encountering themself (as seen in the true version of Red and Adelaide's childhood encounter), with her art she has painted an absolute truth into the world, and caused other people to have that realization.
Thoughts on imagery and stuff like that:
I love the way that snapping figures into Jason's story. The little lighter device for his magic trick is generally used/obfuscated with a snap of the fingers, his mom teaches him to get into rhythm by snapping, and then we see these things mirrored with Pluto.
Yeah but, what did you think of ultimate dad Winston Duke?
This was my feeling. I felt like introducing the twist at that point, and the way it was done, left me walking away from the theatre disappointed even though I enjoyed the rest of the film.
The other big misstep in my opinion was introducing a mundane, or "science" based explanation for the tethered. It seemed really unnecessary and adds a ton of "wait, so how did..." type questions. When Red first gives her speech, I thought "cool, these are people from a moopy shadow world, that's awesome, I am fully on board" and that papers over any logistical plot holes that might come up. It's something that I think should have been removed on a script pass at some point.
Yeah, my roommate was definitely having some of those logistics questions get in the way for her afterwards. And like, I get it - our positions were reversed on that sort of thing when we watched A Quiet Place, in fact.
Like, I still think of it as a moopy shadow world to some extent - Red talks about it being an intentional thing done by the powerful to control them, but there's no definition of who the powerful are, and I'm choosing to interpret them as gods or similar (which does fit in with the tethered having primarily mythologically resonant names).
i don't think this movie's primary goal is narrative consistency
For me, it split the difference too much. It didn't fully commit to "this is just weird, go with it" to the point where I'd turned my brain off.
She's completely an unreliable narrator, though. I don't expect her speech to be gospel. This is how she interprets the world, through the lens of crazy and being in a crazy place for thirty years.
Which metaphor?
Like, I don't think this movie has a direct one-to-one metaphorical life, and I'm not sure I'm approaching it from the same direction as you at this point.
I think the clearest metaphor is a class warfare haves vs have-nots sort of thing, but I don't think that's the only interpretation by a fair margin.