One heck of a 'second album'.

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2019)

While its political commentary isn't as immediately obvious as in Peele's predecessor, 'Get Out (2017)', it's certainly there; 'Us (2019)' touches upon themes of class, oppression and nature vs nurture in subtle but unmistakable ways. Its majority plays out like more straight-forward 'genre' fare, with most of its metaphor being subtextual. What I mean is that the movie makes a point of being satisfying on a surface level, even though it's undoubtedly more rewarding if you're willing to dive into its allegory at least a few levels deep. Also, I say 'straight-forward' but it's really anything but. Sure, it plays with several tried-and-tested tropes but it always tries to subvert your expectations, and it usually succeeds. Some of its twists and turns are more predictable than others, and may even make retrospection slightly more difficult than you'd perhaps like, but these also tend to form in rewardingly counterintuitive ways. It takes a few leaps in logic and doesn't answer every question but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I feel it becomes slightly too unambiguous for its own good. A final act exposition dump takes some off the wind out of the pacing, even if the information is interesting and well presented, and the snippets of backstory we get often lead to more questions than answers, in a quite unsatisfying way that means it's better to ignore the stuff you don't see than to try and make absolute sense of it. Indeed, the sensory experience outweighs the logical on more than one occasion. Again, I don't think this is necessarily bad; the picture is frequently tense, suspenseful and, even, somewhat unnerving. It's never exactly scary but it knows exactly what it's doing, especially when it comes to getting you on the edge of your seat. The doppelgängers are performed exceptionally well, each with their own creepy little quirks and properly evolving motives. The soundtrack, too, does a great job of keeping the tone in check. Once things kick off (after a rather long but necessary first act which sets up the core family and gets us rooting for them), the piece is pretty much unrelenting. It's brilliantly made, in every area, and actually sticks with you for a while, even if that isn't for the reason you may expect it to. At the end of the day, though, the (somewhat unfair) question on everyone's lips is: is it as good as 'Get Out (2017)'? Well, no but, frankly, little is. In the end, it's one heck of a 'second album'. 8/10