The Fear of the Other Self

    A Review of Jordan Peele's "Us" by Michael Palmer

                                            Edited, Co-Written By. Nia Reid                                         

Following his critically acclaimed debut, Jordan Peele has held up the black mirror to society once again with his psychological-thriller film “Us.” The “Get Out” creator takes a different approach to horror by estranging the familiar. The film was filled with the usual twists and turns, without the anxious build up common in horror.

​

“Us” follows the Wilson family on what appears to be a typical family trip to the beach. We see the family riding in the most family friendly car (a station wagon) listening to what their children would consider “the oldies.” There is even a part where the mother dotingly teaches her son how to snap along to Luniz’s “I Got Five on It.” We quickly discover that there is more to come than sun and relaxation, as this beach was a place of trauma for Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o), the mother of the family. When Adelaide was a child, she underwent a traumatic change while walking through a hall of mirrors. Adelaide fears the beach and has carried the feelings of this incident with her for the last 30 years. When Adelaide’s husband, Gabe (Wilson Duke) suggests actually going to the beach, we see Adelaide become increasingly tense about going anywhere near it. After much persuasion Adelaide agrees, and the trouble is set to begin.

​

After Adelaide’s son Jason (Evan Alex) is lost, the family discovers the boy staring at a tattered-clothed, bloodied hand, man standing on the beach. Immediately they return and settle in for the night. Here, Adelaide reveals her experience in the hall of mirrors and why she is paranoid about their trip to the beach. After the clock strikes 11:11 p.m., the lights are cut and the family’s doubles enter the home to wreak havoc and destroy the Wilson family. The families fight until the end, where the truth about their existence and Adelaide’s role in it is revealed.

​

“Us” is a film that includes the expected jump scares and eerie imagery seen in horror, however Peele manages to put a modern twist on these things. In one moment, one is lured into the beauty of each shot and the chemistry of the characters, but there was always a lingering feeling of danger in the backdrop of the seemingly light scenes. Perhaps this was done to mirror the emotions of Adelaide, who frequently voiced her own paranoia about being at their beach house. Peele continued this confusion of emotion through his use of sound. The music featured in many scenes were familiar and songs many people have been known to listen to for enjoyment rather than songs that would be suspenseful. For example, Peele remixed Luniz’s “I Got Five on It” into one fit for a thriller. Another example would be in a scene where friends of the Wilson family are killed by their own doubles to the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and then request the police being called via virtual assistant, only for the device to play N.W.A’s hit “F—the Police.” The music choice helped to shape the atmosphere into one of thick confliction. The question of “How can something so familiar, horrify me now?” was the catalyst of the film’s plot and the struggle for the characters.

​

One major struggle for the family was understanding their doppelgängers and defeating them. Red (Adelaide’s doppelgänger), Abraham (Gabe’s doppelgänger), Pluto (Jason’s doppelgänger), and Umbrae (Zora’s doppelgänger) each begin their attack on their respective counterparts following Red’s explanation of how these characters came to be. They were part of an experiment to make clones of everyone underground to control the people of the surface. These clones were then called “The tethered” as they were tethered to the real person who lived their lives above ground. These experiments were soon forgotten as the creators of this experiment could not duplicate their souls and the clones were left to tend to themselves. With nobody to manage them the clones suffered, and regressed to a near animalistic state of mind. The actors did an excellent job in portraying this behavior and creating the horrifying feeling of a dark reflection and the two themes Peele was trying convey in the film.

​

The fear of the other self and privilege. The monsters in the film are identical to the protagonists in every way but one. The notion of the impossibility to replicate a soul is what separates the two selves entirely. Peele took the concept of an evil twin and capitalized on it, forcing his audience to put themselves under the microscope to examine the suppressed darkness inside all of them. The privilege aspect comes in when Red explains the mirroring differences between those above ground and below ground. While Adelaide grew up eating cooked meals, Red ate raw rabbit and while Adelaide gave birth to healthy children in a hospital, Red performed her own cesarean and gave birth to a boy who truly behaves like a monster. Red and her family are the underprivileged, forgotten, and suppressed parts of humanity that society seeks to ignore. But Adelaide, like everyone else in the film, is no longer awarded the luxury of willful ignorance. Their evil twin is literally staring them in the face and won’t leave without a fight.

​

---

Michael J. Palmer