Us - The Mirror Crack’d

We have met the enemy and he is us. Jordan Peele is back, and he’s as intent as ever on peeling back the veneer of our social identities to reveal what’s lurking beneath the surface. Since Get Out, Peele has been hailed as the successor to Hitchcock – he’s even hosting and producing a reboot of The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access. And in a box office climate where thrillers are hotter than ever, the world is Peele’s twitchy little oyster.

Where Get Out nimbly used allegory to turn the mirror of racism in America on itself, Us continues to put African American characters front and center, with the mirror this time turned upon the characters themselves. The Wilson family is black – refreshingly, unremarkably black – just an American family on their annual beach vacation. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two kids Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) live comfortably. Gabe wears a Howard University sweatshirt and drives a Range Rover. He’s the goofy, funny dad. Duke (so memorable as M'Baku in Black Panther) is wonderful in this role, an instantly relatable American Dad. Adelaide is apprehensive about returning to the Santa Cruz vacation house, where echoes of a trauma from her childhood still resonate. Lupita Nyong'o is remarkable here, pulling double-duty, as does most of the cast. Horror films are delivering increasingly high-caliber performances these days, and you can put Nyong'o’s work right up there with Toni Collette’s in Hereditary. Elisabeth Moss is intoxicating as a neighbor friend and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Black Manta in Aquaman) makes a real impression as young Adelaide’s father.

It’s giving nothing away to reveal that the Wilson’s getaway quickly escalates into home invasion territory – with invaders who are eerie doppelgängers of each of them, including the children. Us is more of a straight-up horror thriller than Get Out, but it’s no less thematically potent, with motifs of class and duality woven throughout the film. For there to be an Us, there has to be a Them. Peele is an avid horror cinephile who knows his tropes, peppering the film with call-backs and references, while staying wholly original in tone. An America where privileged classes live on top while the marginalized live in poverty below is clearly something that’s been weighing on Peele’s mind. His stories are about who we are, and I suspect Us will benefit greatly from repeat viewings.

Just as Jaws made it impossible to go on a trip to the beach without worrying about what’s beneath the water’s surface, Us will likely make it impossible to go on a family vacation without looking in the mirror and worrying about what’s beneath your surface.