*This review contains spoilers*
In 2017, we were all obsessed over Get Out – the incredible movie that made us reflect over racism and representativity in a brilliant way. The film was so acclaimed that gained four Oscar Nominations and won one of them, for Best Original Script.
Now, the director Jordan Peele brought us another film: Us , starred by the incredible Lupita Nyong’o. This time, all the social inclinations are different from Get Out, they are more hidden, giving us space to reflect and even to create theories.
The movie accompanies Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) and her family on a vacation trip in Santa Cruz, California. Although Adelaide has never spoken about a certain childhood trauma that happened on that beach, she is terrified of losing her two children. She is often scared of them being taken (or replaced).
Image Source: IMDb
When her son Jason gets lost, Adelaide loses her mind remembering parts of her own past that once traumatized her. She is often “outer space”, and after that, when she opens up with her husband, Gabe, the thriller really starts.
At night, the family receives an unexpected visit from another family that looks exactly like them. As the movie starts to implant questions in our minds, we realize that those doubles are associated with Adelaide’s childhood trauma in a kind of “mirrors house”, when she saw her look-a-like for the first time. After thirty years, her doppelganger, Red, appears again seeking a revenge for the Shadows, the people that don’t live in the surface.
Image Source: IMDb
The other-family start to attack, but the Wilsons often resists. We can easily see differences between Red and Adelaide as the doppelganger starts to explain her plain to give light to the Shadows. In fact, Red is the only one that can talk.
When Adelaide asks her what they are, Red replies “we are Americans” (we can notice that US is also a reference to United States). What does that mean? In reflection, the “others” are a human type that lives under the ground, they are marginalized and forgotten in comparison to their twins, living in misery.
Image Source: IMDb
Is that some kind of metaphor about the American Way of Life? In spotlight, we have the Wilsons, an average American family that consumes, and we also have their rich friends, the Tylers, which have even a fancier and more technology lifestyle. In oppose, the Shadows appears is those Americans that are not illustrated by media. They’re the ones that do all the hard work for the “first families” to consume, manufacturing clothes, cleaning houses and much more.
As the thriller goes by, with an incredible amount of dark – and even scary – scenes, the story stars to change a little. I won’t give anymore spoilers, but the audience starts to be really surprised with Adelaide’s braveness throught the movie, specially with what happens in the end.
One of Us greatest parts is exactly how open it is to the public to reflect and analyse.