For the faithful, religion is a comfort. It allows us to believe that we are not alone, that something will catch us when we fall and forgive us for our wrongdoings. Horror movies often draw their plots off of the absence of faith or comfort. Director Jordan Peele takes this trope to a completely different level in his movie Us, a film that epitomizes a society without forgiveness, comprised of humans detached from one another and punctuated by remorseless violence.
Us focuses on the Wilsons, a nuclear family vacationing in Santa Cruz. Like most American families, the Wilsons are detached from reality and one another. Zora Wilson [portrayed by Shahadi Wright Joseph] is a disinterested teenager, who fails to find solace in anything besides her phone. Her brother Jason [Evan Alex] isolates himself from the family by hiding behind his cherished Chewbacca mask, only pulling it away from his face when his parents sternly talk to him. The father, Gabe [Winston Duke], wishes for his family to connect more, but only if it’s on his terms.
However, the character that leaves an impression on the audience is Adelaide Wilson [Lupita Nyong’o], a protective mother whose anxiety and post-traumatic stress haunts her throughout the first act. For Adelaide, returning to Santa Cruz is more terrifying than it is enjoyable. As a child, she too vacationed in Santa Cruz, where she encountered her doppelgänger in a fun house. They were alike in every way, with not a hair nor physical feature out of place. The event is shrouded in mystery, never truly revealed until the movie’s climax, but the audience is left knowing that the experience left her a completely different person and condemned her to a life of worry.
As the powerful matriarch of the Wilson family, Adelaide managed to stifle her bouts of nervousness and fear for the good of her family. But the longer she stays in Santa Cruz, the more intense her speculations of catastrophe become. She tells her husband Gabe of the growing dread she feels in the vacation spot, of the dopplegänger incident that left her battered and traumatized. Gabe believes that Adelaide’s paranoia has simply clouded her sense of judgment; his doubt is apparent. However, Adelaide’s worst suspicions greet her and her family with a vengeance that night. At the foot of the driveway appears a perfect copy of every member of the family, each individual dressed in red jumpsuits, armed with a pair of scissors, and eyes flooded with murderous intent. They are the tethered, and they are here to wreak havoc upon humanity.
Us is a horror film that runs much deeper than its counterparts, with religious and historical allusions woven into every aspect of the story. It betrays the viewers’ every expectations and provokes thought and reflection, leaving the audience dumbfounded and aching for answers. As Jordan Peele’s second major motion picture, it exceeds expectations, possibly paralleling to the writer and director’s first hit film, Get Out. It is a movie unlike any other, with a plot accentuated by Lupita Nyong’o and her co-stars’ exceptional performances. If you’re a movie buff looking for a film that will have you on the edge of your seat, make sure to check out Us in a theatre near you!
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