Funny Games

Rating: 6/10 (12 August 2019)

Us is a puzzling film that slowly reveals its layers but then becomes more illogical and confusing.
It is better to not think about too deeply and just enjoy the ride. It means you lose any subtext the filmmaker had about a society of us and the others.
The film opens at the funfair in the boardwalk of Santa Cruz in 1986. A small girl, Adelaide is on holiday and wanders off while her father is playing whack-a-mole. As she enters a funhouse she sees a doppelgänger of herself in the hall of mirrors. This encounter left her unable to communicate for some time and still affects her in the present day.
We then cut to the present day when Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o) is vacationing at their summer home in Santa Cruz with her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and two children Zora and Jason.
One evening the Wilsons see another family that looks exactly like them standing outside the house decked out in red overalls. They look like they mean to harm them and they are somehow tethered to the soul of the individual Wilson family members.
The doppelgängers all grunt except for Red, Adelaide's double who speaks with a raspy voice. Red tells Adelaide that both of them are tethered together and share a soul. These doubles live in a subterranean underground world.
As an home invasion horror it is very effective and chilling, we find out that other families are being slaughtered by their doubles. It leads to a problem. Why are the Wilsons being toyed with when other families are being brutally killed and the violence is spreading as the doubles attempt to enact their own Hands across America.
The moment the film broadens its premise it starts losing it logic. Even when the family try to get away from Santa Cruz and head down to Mexico, after driving all night they are somehow still in Santa Cruz. I've been to Santa Cruz it is not that big!
Jordan Peele tries to underpin his film with some kind of explanation and symbolism but it is half baked. He also wants to tie the film together by making it all about Adelaide. Unlike Get Out there is little humour in this film although Gabe is meant to be a dorky dad.