Us (2019) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Thriller

Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family. After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.

Storyline: In order to get away from their busy lives, the Wilson family takes a vacation to Santa Cruz, California with the plan of spending time with their friends, the Tyler family. On a day at the beach, their young son Jason almost wanders off, causing his mother Adelaide to become protective of her family. That night, four mysterious people break into Adelaide's childhood home where they're staying. The family is shocked to find out that the intruders look like them, only with grotesque appearances. Written by jesusblack-30225

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, June 11, 2019 Us is a Horror film with smarts and some teeth behind it. Writer/Director Jordan Peele, the mastermind behind 2017's superb Get Out, crafts a tale of suspense, violence, personalized terror, and large-scale frights, all with sharp social over- and undertones playing alongside. He builds an intimate, personal portrait of longstanding fright that clashes with a far flung yet creepily believable vision of something far bigger and far more sinister. That balance between personally connected terror and the unravelling of the world around makes for an effective juxtaposition that Peele explores in hypnotic cadence, slowly but surely unveiling new realities and revelations with each new scene.

The year is 1986. Young Adelaide Thomas (Madison Curry) wanders away from her family at a Santa Cruz, California carnival and enters a strange hall of mirrors where she frighteningly encounters a perfect double of herself. It's a traumatizing moment that leaves the girl speechless for many years. Decades later, she's a grown woman with a husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and two children, Zora and Jason (Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex, respectively). The family is vacationing in Santa Cruz at Gabe's jolly insistence. Adelaide's emotional scars quickly resurface, and she has no desire to remain. But as Gabe brushes off her concerns, the family comes to realize that four red-clad individuals await them outside. It's not long before they're in the house, with deadly scissors in hand, and reveal that they are doppelgängers with the intention to kill. As the bloody night progresses, the family fights for its life as a much larger danger is exposed.

Like with Get Out, Peele builds in Us a story of unnerving cadence and terrifying revelation in the tradition of Hitchcock and Shyamalan. The film thrives not on the ebbs and flows of its violence, of scenes of killings and the red-clad doppelgängers stalking and toying with their prey. No, Us is built almost entirely around the psychological. Adelaide's longstanding mental wounds stem from a preview, of sorts, of the future, the child version of herself coming face-to-face with, literally, a living, breathing mirror image. Her fears are all but dismissed by her husband who quickly alters course when confronted with his own vision of himself and of his family. But it's the mental anguish that drives the film, and Peele gradually pulls back the veil on something much larger than a mere physical duplicate. That revelation and its details are not necessarily vital to the story, which is more concerned with deeper thematic drivers that speak to a wide array of content, from individuality to oppression and well beyond. Peele reveals just enough for the audience to puzzle through the real-world ramifications while building a well versed entertainment vessel to hold the deeper content. It's another job well done from one of the up-and-coming greats.

The film is well cast and performed. Lupita Nyong'o's work is of particular note. She harbors a deep-seeded fear born of a single moment when she literally "found herself," and found her fate, in a hall of mirrors. Like much of the movie, the allusion is not subtle, but it's what Peele and Nyong'o do with it that drives the film. Nyong'o goes through the expected process through the film, transitioning from frightened would-be victim to more stout heroine, but not without towing the emotional baggage that defines who she is. The performance is particularly exceptional considering Peele's ultimate reveal, which challenges the actress to find a greater purpose within the character's overreaching arc. Indeed, the film's finale, and the entire dramatic current and thematic layout, offer ample opportunity for study. "Everything in this movie was deliberate," Peele has said, and the cast's ability to fine-tune the arcs and explore the personalities with the depth necessary not to carry the hack-and-slash but rather the more significant content is quite the accomplishment.

Peele's ideas open many avenues of thought, and he smartly leaves much of it to the viewer to extrapolate the bigger picture in play. The tale opens up endless possibilities for thought exercise, concerning both the narrative strokes and the thematic issues the film raises in a not-so-subtle but not-so-overt manner. It's very well balanced, generously thoughtful, and impressively crafted and performed. Universal's Blu-ray release of Us delivers high yield video and audio presentations. Several extras are included. Highly recommended.

[CSW] -1.4- This movie does not live up to the hype and that is no reflection on the actors. They did an excellent job. I just don't think it was written, produced, or directed very well, with the story line being the major flaw. This movie is not scary/suspenseful, rather a "cerebral" thriller that is very hard to follow and increasingly incoherent. Poorly timed jokes detract from the thriller/suspenseful tone they were going for. It is also too long, at nearly two hours. There are those that believe that it reflects a much deeper meaning that reflected social injustices. The tethered represented society's lower class. They say that this is reflected many times such as the rich woman being able to afford elective surgery while the burnt child lives with his wounds. And when the tethered man takes the glasses from the other man and experiences improved vision for the first time. The narrative further shows that those who are taken from the world of the less fortunate and put into a life of privilege can become successful. And that the story is a reflection of the Americans who live underneath and unnoticed by the privileged. I gave that a passing thought but gave up on it with the deaths, as I could see no motive or reward for the killings. What did breaking the tether do for the tethered? The ending will leave you more confused than actually watching the movie; there's no real closure.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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