Us (2019)

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2019)

Directed by Jordan Peele. Starring Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Madison Curry, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. (R)
Writer/director Peele's follow-up to his Oscar-winning "Get Out" is a similarly social issue-minded horror film with a heavy dose of character-rooted comic relief; it's not quite as impressive an achievement as his debut, but it proves that he's the real deal as a filmmaker. While vacationing, Nyong'o and her family take a trip to a beach where she experienced a traumatic event as a child; the adage about being unable to bury the sins of the past definitely applies here. Bursting with ideas on race and class (and the privilege and identity attached to both), teasing at the clichés of scary movie tropes while giddily embracing them at the same time. Nyong'o is terrific in the dual role of the terrified but fierce mother hen and the...something else; Duke and Heidecker provide most of the laughs. Not all the peculiar world-built incident threads resolve or pay off satisfactorily (or even make clear sense), but as with "Get Out," it's a movie that improves on revisit so that everything can be viewed from different angles with forethought and refocused attention.
80/100