The best of 2017

Rating: 9/10 (14 May 2017)

IT'S no secret that comedians can have a darker side away from the belly laughs and humour.
For Jordan Peele - one half of the hilarious Key and Peele duo - he's taken a hot-button issue and turned it into a film that's both currently pertinent to what's going on in the US and deeply disturbing.
Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is a photographer with a keen eye. He's also African American and is dating a white girl, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). This cute pair head off for the weekend to Rose's parents' home in what will be his first time meeting them.
Reservations about being black are dismissed as paranoia by Rose and the couple head off to the picturesque suburbs. However, not is all as it seems upon arriving and it soon becomes apparent that Chris's fears had some foundation as Rose's mysterious parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener, show something more sinister beneath the fake smiles and feigned interest.
Writer and director Peele has pulled off a masterstroke with one of the most timely and horrifying satirical takes on anxieties facing African Americans in the 21st century. If that's not enough, it also takes aim at the horrendous slaving past that blights the country's history.