144 - Us

Mirrors and doppelgangers and dual meanings and symmetries abound in Jordan Peele's Us, in which a family of four is terrorised one evening by a family of four identical copies. Like Get Out, Peele's 2017 debut, Us is hyper-aware of its genre's ability to make use of bold metaphor to offer coded commentary on social issues. We find more room for a variety of interpretations in Us than in Get Out, and our conversation ranges from talk of race and its importance or lack thereof, consumer culture and materialism, cultural items and icons, including and especially Michael Jackson, someone who embodies duality better than perhaps anybody, the 1986 charity event Hands Across America and the competing ideas conveyed by its imagery, and far more. We also find the time to discuss and praise Lupita Nyong'o's incredible pair of central performances, creating two fully embodied characters, the technicality of her physical acting always perfectly evident but never distracting. She's extraordinary. We have our problems with it, including its structure, lack of scares, and some imagery that we find lacking in meaning or clarity, and it's a less tight and cogent film than Get Out, which we ultimately agree is superior. But it's ambitious, intelligent, witty, original and rewarding. See it. Recorded on 14th April 2019.