Us is Jordan Peele’s latest take on the culture of Black america and the thriller genre he’s known for. The film is ambitious and a tale of a young girl who is swapped out and takes over life in the real world. The film is about the take over of a race of doppelganger’s who are identical and americans as well living in tunnels under the real world.
“Us” is more ambitious than “Get Out,” and in some ways more unsettling. Once again, Peele is exploring existential terrors and the theme of possession, this time through the eerie form of the monstrous doppelgänger. The figure of the troublesome other of Jekyll and Hyde, of the conscious and unconscious, ripples through the story of an ordinary family, the Wilsons, stalked by murderous doubles. These shadows look like the Wilsons but are frighteningly different, with fixed stares and guttural, animalistic vocalizations
Peele likes to mix tones and moods, and as he did in “Get Out,” he uses broad humor both for delay and deflection. Overall the film maintains suspense, twists and turns and even a lot of cultural elements how the government suppresses the American people.
The uprising of the people living in the tunnels is almost symbolic of the slave uprising and has hidden motif’s of culture and racism in America. The film’s end leaves it wide open for a sequel and I truly enjoyed every moment of it.
