A Story of Classism and Nurture over Nature

Rating: 8/10 (26 February 2020)

Us follows a family on vacation in the Santa Cruz area. The mother experienced a traumatic event in the same place back in the 80s and is reluctant to return, but the enthusiasm of her husband encourages her to soldier through for everyone else's sake. They come home to a family waiting in their driveway that look exactly like them, and then the violence begins. Turns out there's a doppelganger of every person in America living in extensive underground tunnels, mimicking every movement made above ground. That is until this fateful night when the entire population of Tethered emerge for a violent uprising.
This is a movie that can be viewed at multiple levels, and how well it stands up depends on what level you view it at. On the surface it's literally just a movie of doppelgangers killing their originals and taking over. Dig a little deeper and you start to unearth plot holes and ask questions that were never intended to have answers (it's a movie, not everything has to be answered, otherwise we get The Da Vinci Code with a twenty-minute exposition dump in the middle). Dig even deeper than that and you start to reach the subtext and themes of the movie, the most fundamental of which being that of class. The Tethered are the lowest class. They literally live lower than everyone else, underground, and they have no wealth, no purpose, and they live off whatever they can find (in this case rabbits). Everyone else above them are middle-upper class. Of course for this point to hammer home, the only families we really see are middle-upper class by our standards already. Both the Wilsons and the Tylers have these large, modern vacation homes right on a closed lake, with their own boats. These are not people living on the bread line. Either way, they're completely ignorant to the Tethered's existence, living better lives in blissful ignorance, lives that the Tethered covet for themselves. Their above-ground violence is a revolution against the wealthy, as has been seen across the globe throughout history.
But there's another layer to consider with the film's twist (SPOILERS, obviously). The Tethered are seen as the evil twins; violent, sociopathic, unable to communicate beyond grunts and yells. And yet the Adelaide we follow for the majority of the movie is herself a Tethered, with a family she made for herself. While her violent tendencies come out from time-to-time, she's an otherwise well-adjusted member of society. Jason and Zora are her biological children. Gabe is the man she fell in love with and married. There's no hoodwinking there. Despite not being the "real" Adelaide, she lives a more real life than the real one does. On the flipside the real Adelaide (otherwise known as Red) is an original restricted to a life underground surrounded by Tethered. She's the only one down there with a degree of free will, and is seen as a leader figure for them, a focal point of some form of religion. She's almost god-like compared to her cohabitants. But she is ultimately moulded by her surroundings. She loses her voice, she grows resentful and violent, she's the only one aware of what's happening above ground and the only one that knows the life they lead isn't a natural one. She's the original Adelaide, and yet she is undoubtedly still the "evil" one. But then that's the point isn't it; there's no such thing as an evil Adelaide. They're both good and bad in their own way, in their own worlds. We're all just products of our environments and others' perspectives.
Luipta Nyong'o absolutely earns her top-billing in this film, managing both Adelaide and Red without missing a step. Adelaide is a traumatised and fearful woman who grew so accustomed to her nice life that she forgot who she really was. All she knows is she has an irrational fear of a place. With Red she gets room to play around with a more interesting character, one who has been driven to extremes by her circumstances. The raspy voice she gives Red is just icing on the cake that really emphasises the divide between the two Adelaides. Elisabeth Moss is also really good in her limited screentime, but much like Nyong'o, it's her Tethered character that gets the greater opportunity to impress and be creative. The way she reacts to real make-up, as well as the death of her Tethered husband is fascinating and creepy in equal measure. Winstone Duke is the opposite, really shining as the original Gabe and offering a large part of the film's comic relief. He's a guy easy to like and sympathise with, and it's just a flat-out joy watching him.
The soundtrack by Michael Abels deserves a special mention too, and is largely responsible for why I might prefer this over Get Out. The creepy chanting really gives Us its own unique sonic quality, as well as perfectly fitting and emphasising the movie's unnerving quality from beginning to end. It marries so well with Peele's slow establishing shots that like to linger on a detail. Another stand-out is the remixed version of I Got 5 On It by Luniz, which is then adapted further by Abels into Pas De Deux for the film's climactic confrontation between Red and Adelaide. The licensed music is also great, especially damn The Police and Good Vibrations adding a fantastic comedy element to an otherwise dark and violent scene.
Would Us have made it to my Top10 list? Yeah, more than likely, which is a little disappointing, but it is what it is. While I feel like Get Out might ultimately be Peele's better film, I can easily say I enjoyed Us more. Us is filled with plotholes, unanswered questions, and hapdash world-building, but ultimately I didn't find that any of that really mattered in the grand scheme of things. The film is really well-crafted, chock full of references, foreshadowing, and recurring motifs, with a fantastic score, brilliant performances, and a story that begs more questions of us and our role in society than it does about its own plot. I give Us a really good 8/10, and I can't wait for Peele's next movie.