"Get Out" is an inventive, insightful and very entertaining film.

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2017)

Writers are told "write what you know". For Jordan Peele, that meant writing (and directing) 2017's "Get Out" (R, 1:43), but also stretching significantly as an artist. Half of the Comedy Central comic duo of Key and Peele, Peele has been a comedian since college and is a veteran of The Second City improv troupe and MADtv. The product of an interracial marriage, much of Peele's comedy springs from his observations about race and racial divisions in the U.S., while he also uses his work as a form of social commentary on those issues. His talent and insight have earned him nominations for the Emmy Award and NAACP Image Award (multiple times each – including one Emmy win, an American Comedy Award and a Peabody Award for accomplishments in public media). Peele has also appeared in films (including 2016's "Keanu", with comedy partner Keegan-Michael Peele), television shows and internet videos. All of those experiences serve him well in "Get Out", a movie which has moments of comedy and carries implications for our racially divided modern world, but is actually more horror film than anything else.
Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is a New York City photographer who is preparing to drive out to the country with his girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), in order to meet her parents for the first time. Chris is nervous about how Rose's parents will react to their daughter dating a black man and Chris' buddy, TSA agent Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery), teases him over the phone about the situation. Rose reassures Chris that her parents are very liberal and open-minded. As Rose predicted, her father, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and her mother, Missy (Catherine Keener), welcome Chris with open arms.
It turns out that they are not racist, but they do make a number of racially insensitive remarks without realizing it and they employ two servants, both of whom are black. Walter (Marcus Henderson), the groundskeeper, and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), the maid, both act so politely that it seems phony to Chris, not to mention that they both speak very strangely. When Rose's brother, Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones), shows up for dinner, he is even rougher around the edges than his parents. Things get even more uncomfortable for Chris when an annual gathering at the Armitage home introduces Chris to a host of rich white people much like Rose's parents (except for a blind art dealer played by Stephen Root), while one older woman is married to a young black man (LaKeith Stanfield) who looks vaguely familiar to Chris, but who doesn't act anything like the black men that Chris knows from back in his native Brooklyn.
But it's not just the way everyone acts that makes Chris uncomfortable – it's also the things that are happening around him. A police officer whom they meet after hitting a deer on a country road treats Chris like he did something wrong, even though he wasn't driving at the time. Missy, who is a psychiatrist, voices her strong opposition to Chris smoking around her daughter and insists on hypnotizing Chris in order to help him break the habit, even after Chris turns down her offer. She also keeps prodding him to talk about a painful memory from his childhood. Chris talks to Rod on the phone about the strangeness of his weekend and then Chris starts finding his phone unplugged. It also turns out that Rose hasn't been entirely forthcoming about her dating history. I'd like to say more, but I won't because, as much as I've already written, there are still plenty of surprises for the audience to discover.
"Get Out" is an inventive, insightful and very entertaining film. Although admittedly influenced by "The Stepford Wives", what happens in this movie and why it's happening is original and sheds fresh light on the subtler manifestations of racism in America, even from sympathetic and well-meaning people and groups. In fact, it's easy to see this movie as one mainly about racism, but generally, as a Movie Fan, I see it mainly as a well-crafted horror film. There's a certain creepiness about it that starts early, and then slowly, steadily ramps up throughout the film and its appropriately unexpected and shocking reveals. Some of the plot points strain scientific credulity, but that seems to matter little in what is basically a horror fantasy. The film is perfectly cast and terrifically acted. There's also some funny, effective and well-placed comic relief (from Howery's character). That's to be expected from someone like Jordan Peele, but who knew that he would be so good at horror? This movie feels like one of M. Night Shyamalan's better films, with a strong subtext of social commentary. For so effectively presenting these elements and perfectly balancing them, this film deserves the nearly perfect grade of "A".