Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
- Released: 2019-03-14
- Runtime: 116 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thrillers
- Stars: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Tim Heidecker, Elisabeth Moss, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Madison Curry, Duke Nicholson, Napiera Groves, Kara Hayward, Lon Gowan, Alan Frazier, Dustin Ybarra, Nathan Harrington, Darrel Cherney, James Cobb, Alessandro Garcia, David M Sandoval Jr., Ashley McKoy, Jordan Peele
- Director: Jordan Peele
Comments
- bestfootie - 2 June 2024
Rewatched
So, I watched this in 2019 maybe just before lockdown nonsense. It was a trip then. But I found it more funny than anything with the weird voices of the others, and the scissors. I started walking around the house with scissors and speaking while breathing in. Stayed with me for a few days and I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to figure out what was going on.
I watched it again today with a similarly minded spiritual friend and we were seeing all these deep metaphors for the soul, what we do to the soul when we do good/bad here in this physical world, how we must make our music and connect to G-d which has an unseen albeit very real effect on the root of our soul in the more permanent existence after our base physicality passes.
My review was initially 4, as I felt it had taken me on a wild goose chase with no reward. However I've now upped my review rating to 7 as I think it was very well done, lots of covert things hidden which I didn't pick up on the first time. I saw glimpses of Tarantino that Jordan Peele was clearly inspired by at times, the soundtrack works at very moments.
If you are of a spiritual/philosophical bent then you'll enjoy this. Probably don't watch if you're high or on some drugs or you may go down too deep a rabbit hole...
If you're not spiritual/philosophical, you probably won't appreciate this movie. - ESHSfilmclub - 11 February 2024
A suspenseful commentary on American class privilege.
Jordan Peele's use of doppelgangers places a fresh spin on the trope of unprivileged people living underground to provide another source of societal commentary. Us demonstrates that people without opportunity are as capable as those living above the ground indulging in the sun. The only difference is the lack of accessibility to opportunity. Peele's diverse characters provide the perfect comic relief while building tension in the film's thought-provoking plot. These comedic moments harken back to Peele's earlier works like the Key & Peele show, balancing the film's otherwise desolate feeling. The subtle details of the film make it worth the rewatch. - kevin_robbins - 24 December 2023
A brilliant blend of Hitchcock and Romero
I recently rewatched Us (2019) on Netlix. The storyline follows a family on summer vacation. The mother has a traumatic childhood experience that haunts her and as strange things start happening on vacation the ghosts from her past come back to life...
This masterpiece is written and directed by budding icon Jordan Peele (Get Out) and stars Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), Winston Duke (Black Panther), Elisabeth Moss (Handmaid's Tale), Shahadi Wright Joseph (Them), Evan Alex (The Kid) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman).
This is a brilliant blend of Hitchcock and Romero and I absolutely adore this picture. This is a horror enthusiasts dream with intricate plot and references to horror classics. This also has a brilliant cast that delivers wonderful performances. The horror aspects are subtle, intense and gory. The lighting, use of colors and cinematography is elite and the soundtrack is as good as any horror movie ever created.
In conclusion, this is one of the best horror movies created this decade. I would score this a 10/10 and strongly recommend it. - xiaoli7377 - 14 December 2022
Us and Them
Great movie, I loved it. It's so hard to talk about a film like this without giving spoilers, but the one thing that I don't get is all of the negative or mediocre scores; this movie has a lot lower score on this website than some really abysmally overrated movies (some that somehow even grace the "Top 250" movies of all time list that they have here). I have a feeling that in a few more years this will be looked back at as a great hidden gem from this era in film making.
What Jordan Peele is able to do here is make a statement that goes beyond the great social commentary that was present in "Get Out", in a way that shows that he is a competent filmmaker in films that are less on-the-nose. And I'm not even going to attempt to interpret or analyze the themes and very interesting thinking points that I felt that this movie brought up. It just seems like this second film of his shows a lot of the maturity that he must have went through as a story writer and film maker after the success that was "Get Out." I think that it is a much better film than his first in most levels that are objective, such as cinematography, writing, suspenseful moments, and such (Lupita Nyong'o steals the show). This is no knock on "Get Out", that was still a superb movie. I just can't help but be bedazzled and feel instant love for this film. Maybe it's because this was my first viewing of "Us" and I've seen "Get Out" three times in the past.
I've found all three of Jordan Peele's films ("Nope" is a slightly lesser degree of awesome) thus far to be built of the highest cinematic craftsmanship and that engage you in a very cerebral and thought-provoking way; an invitation to be quizzical about the unknown, investigative of clues and themes and meanings, and to walk away with perhaps a different perspective on something, anything (Peele rarely tells you straight up what that "anything" is, rather guiding you on a path of clearer thinking) than when you first arrived. That's all I can really ask out of a movie: to push the bounds of my imagination and alter my way of thinking. That's the magic of cinema and that is what I have found so incredibly stimulating from "Us." - SPZMaxinema - 21 October 2022
Well made with frustrating flaws.
Jordan Peele is a fantastic horror movie director, which he mainly showcased first with Get Out (which I liked better than this movie). This movie was well shot and directed and had intense scenes that made me uncomfortable (which horror movies are designed to do). The acting was phenomenal as well and I give the cast a lot of credit for their work. Plus, a surprising twist at the end worked well given smaller details throughout the film.
Unfortunately, this movie is also filled with cheap horror movie knock off cliches that I saw right through (characters making stupid decisions like Red getting out of the car and walking around multiple times while on the run from these clones with her family, her being initially captured instead of killed right away by that second family on the beach, and characters being saved just in the nick of time before being killed by another good character). Not to mention other questions that the movie raises about how the clones could survive on their own in the ways they did for that long while underground.
Overall, while it did have its bad moments, it was still fine in many parts! - goat-04054 - 2 September 2022
Style and substance over logic
The title says it all on how I feel about this movie. The premise is great, the movie is pretty unique and there's an interesting meaning/message. Where the movie fails though, is the logic. The explanation the movie gives for the clones creates so many plotholes that it almost just ruins the movie for me. Like I (and a lot of others) have so many questions:
How did the clones survive underground?
How do they know how to mimic their originals?
Why do they even do that?
What if the original travel by car, train or plane?
Why did the government just leave the clones underground?
I could go on.
Aside from that though the movie is still enjoyable.
