Us Film Blog

Jordan Peele’s Us is certainly a unique take on the horror genre and many viewers and critics have even detected political and racial themes built into the story. As someone who is generally not much of a horror movie fan, I was curious how this was going to turn out based on all of the good reviews that I had heard. Regarding those political and racial themes, they were not as immediately apparent to me, but I am also someone who is not much of a metaphorical person when it comes to film. But upon closer inspection, I could see some of what people were talking about. There were two big moments that particularly stood out to me. One, was the line that went something along the lines of “We are America” when Lupita Nyong’o’s character asked her doppelganger who they were. This could be interpreted as them representing attacks and oppression on African Americans in the United States, or even more simply, the fight against these attacks and oppression by African Americans. Another aspect that becomes readily apparent is the “Hands Across America” topic which is so prevalent and makes you think even deeper about the beforementioned “We Are America” quote. They took this movement and put such a dark twist on it and used this as a metaphor for what they were doing (the doppelgangers that is). The ending of the film was quite interesting, and I imagine is quite provocative. My question is does that mean she was the doppelganger the whole time? I was quite confused by this especially after the whole dialogue of the other doppelganger just moments before. It was certainly another twist that I did not see coming, but it did raise multiple questions that harken back to multiple parts of the film.