Movie Review: Jordan Peeles’ “US”

Jordan Peele’s second horror film Us premiered in theaters this past Thursday, March 21. With this film having to fulfill some of the same expectations of his first film Get Out, Peele had to prove to his audience that he could catch audience’s attention again with yet another psychological thriller.
The Academy Award winning writer, actor, and director created the film with the ideal theme that people are their own biggest enemy. Peele began his career with an acting role in Comedy. In 2003 he debuted on Fox’s Mad TV and continued on for 5 seasons, until leaving the show in 2008, just before the series ended in 2009. In 2012, he then created his own comedy series entitled Key & Peele featuring a co-starring role with comedian Keegan-Michael Key, which aired on Comedy Central for five seasons.
The acting experience he received over the years prepared him to enter into the directing field. With all of the success and accolades he received from Get Out, Peele attempts to put his unique vision on screen again to tell a different story. Previews for the cinema aired in 2018, just before Christmas.
The film features a family composed of a husband portrayed by Winston Duke, wife Lupita Nyong’o, with children who are played by Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Evan Alex. Although this is Joseph and Alex’s debut cinema, Nyong’o made her acting debut in the movie Twelve Years a Slave and Duke is most notably known for his role in the Marvel film Black Panther. The beginning of the movie is a flashback to the year 1986. Adelaide Thomas, Lupita’s character, is at a beach in Santa Cruz with her parents. She ventures off on her own and enters a funhouse where she encounters an evil doppelganger. The movie then forwards to present day, where Thomas has developed a family of her own and is on vacation in Santa Cruz.
They visit the same beach where she first encountered the doppelganger, and though she experiences some frustration, and causes a scene, she makes it home to explain to her husband her feelings of discomfort. This is when the family learns about the counterparts of them all, which are called shadows. Adelaide’s shadow is the ringleader of the operation, as she assembles the rest of the shadows of the world to work together in a plot for world domination. Their main goal is to kill and replace them so they can live their lives out as humans. Each shadow appears to be visibly the authentic human, but they seem to have traits that are opposite from the actual person.
The family fights for their lives, and though Peele has a knack for comedy, he does not disappoint with the action, and suspense of the film to keep the audience on their toes. Peele did not want his audience to feel as if this film was based on prejudice persons and everyday racial issues that were similar to his last film, but the purpose was meant to promote constructive thinking.