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Us (2019 film)

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Us
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJordan Peele
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMike Gioulakis
Edited byNicholas Monsour
Music byMichael Abels
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
  • March 8, 2019 (2019-03-08) (SXSW)
  • March 22, 2019 (2019-03-22) (United States)
Running time
116 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million[2]

Us is a 2019 American psychological horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele. The film stars Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker, and follows a family who are confronted by a group of doppelgängers.

The project was first announced in February 2018, and much of the cast joined that summer. Peele produced the film alongside Jason Blum and Sean McKittrick (with the trio previously having collaborated on Get Out and BlacKkKlansman), as well as Ian Cooper. Filming took place from July to October 2018 in California.

Us had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 8, 2019 and is scheduled for release in the United States on March 22, 2019, by Universal Pictures. The film was praised for its screenplay, direction, acting (particularly Nyong’o and Duke), editing, musical score and cinematography, with IGN calling it a "marvelous new American horror story."[3]

Plot

A young girl, Adelaide, goes to the beach on a trip with her parents in Santa Cruz. Adelaide wanders off and stumbles across a hall of mirrors and while exploring, she encounters a doppelgänger of herself. She is later reunited with her parents, although traumatized and unable to talk about the experience.

Many years later, an adult Adelaide goes on a beach trip with her husband Gabe and their two children, Zora and Jason. Adelaide is noticeably nervous about the trip and initially decides not to go but is convinced by the others. At the beach, the Wilson family meets their friends, the Tylers: Kitty, Josh, and their twin teenage daughters Gwen and Maggie. While the kids are all at the beach, Jason wanders off on his own and finds a man with his arms stretched out dripping with blood. Adelaide notices him missing and panics, eventually finding Jason and deciding that it's time for the family to go back to the house.

Later that night, Jason alerts Adelaide and Gabe that a strange family is standing outside the house. Gabe goes out to warn the family off the property with a baseball bat, only to have them attack and break in. Inside the living room, Red, Adelaide's doppelgänger, tells them of a story of a princess and her shadow and their relationship, before forcing Adelaide to handcuff herself to the table. The family are separated by their dopplegängers: Zora is pursued out the house by her doppelgänger Umbrae, while Gabe is dragged away by his doppelgänger Abraham. Zora manages to escape Umbrae who kills an investigating neighbor while Gabe and Abraham fight on Gabe's boat, during which Gabe manages to kill Abraham. Back at the house, Jason leads his doppelgänger Pluto inside a closet and notices that he mirrors his actions almost simultaneously. He takes off his mask and finds that half of Pluto's face is burned off. Jason impresses him with a magic trick, but when Pluto demands that he do the trick again, Jason successfully traps him in the closet and escapes. Adelaide manages to escape the handcuffs, retrieving a fire poker and escaping the house with Jason. They regroup with Zora and Gabe, and the Wilsons manage to escape on the boat.

Meanwhile the Tylers are attacked and killed by their doppelgängers. Shortly after, the Wilsons arrive at the house to get help and witness the doppelgängers wreaking havoc; working together, the Wilsons manage to kill the group. The Wilsons turn on the TV and find out that the red doubles have all been killing people, and have joined together to hold hands (similar to Hands Across America). They manage to kill Umbrae while speeding away.

Now morning, the Wilsons get to the boardwalk, where they see their car burning with Pluto standing in front. Adelaide decides to get out and walk to him, but Jason soon realizes that it is a trap. Jason makes Pluto walk backwards into the burning car, but is grabbed by Red. Adelaide runs after them, while Zora and Gabe see that the beach is now full of red doppelgängers joining hands. Adelaide makes her way back to the funhouse and goes all the way down into a tunnel with rabbits roaming free. She finds Red inside one of the many rooms, and Red explains that all this time, the underground has been filled with everyone's doppelgängers, as result of a government cloning experiment gone wrong.

After a fight, Adelaide manages to overpower Red and gets Jason back. The family reunites and drives away. As everyone looks relieved Adeline has a flash memory: the night "Red" met Adelaide in the funhouse all those years ago, she knocked her out, took her clothing, and went off into the real world. The real-world "Adelaide"is actually the doppelgänger, and "Red" was simply the real Adelaide getting her revenge, thus why "Red" is the only one of the doubles to have concrete speech while all the other doppelgängers in the film have animalistic sounds). Jason appears to realize the truth, and puts his mask on uneasily. It is then shown all the red doppelgängers around the United States joined together, holding hands.

Cast

  • Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide Wilson (née Thomas), the matriarch of the Wilson family, Gabe's wife, and Jason and Zora's mother.
    • Nyong'o also portrays Red, Adelaide's Tethered doppelgänger and the leader of the Tethered.
    • Madison Curry portrays the younger versions of Adelaide and Red.
  • Winston Duke as Gabriel "Gabe" Wilson, the patriarch of the Wilson family, Adelaide's husband, and Jason and Zora's father.
    • Duke also portrays Abraham, Gabe's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Shahadi Wright Joseph as Zora Wilson, Jason's sister and Gabe and Adelaide's teenage daughter.
    • Wright Joseph also portrays Umbrae, Zora's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Evan Alex as Jason Wilson, Zora's brother and Gabe and Adelaide's son.
    • Alex also portrays Pluto, Jason's Tethered doppelgänger who is disfigured and likes to play with fire.
  • Elisabeth Moss as Kitty Tyler, a friend of the Wilson family, Josh's wife, and the mother of Gwen and Maggie.
    • Moss also portrays Dahlia, Kitty's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Tim Heidecker as Josh Tyler, a friend of the Wilson family, Kitty's husband, and the father of Gwen and Maggie.
    • Heidecker also portrays Tex, Josh's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Russell Thomas, Adelaide's father.
    • Abdul-Mateen II also portrays Weyland, Russell's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Anna Diop as Rayne Thomas, Adelaide's mother.
    • Diop also portrays Eartha, Rayne's Tethered doppelgänger and the former leader and founder of the Tethered.
  • Cali and Noelle Sheldon as Gwen and Maggie Tyler, Kitty and Josh's twin daughters.
    • The Sheldons also portray Io and Nix, Gwen and Maggie's Tethered doppelgängers.
  • Duke Nicholson as Danny Johnson, a police officer.
    • Nicholson also portrays Tony, Danny's Tethered doppelgänger who suffers from hair loss.
  • Kara Hayward as Nancy
    • Hayward also portrays Syd, Nancy's Tethered doppelgänger.
  • Nathan Harrington as Glen
    • Harrington also portrays Jack, Glen's Tethered doppelgänger.

Production

Development

After being dismayed by the "genre confusion" of Get Out, Peele opted to make Us a full-on horror film, which was described by Rolling Stone as "spill-your-soda scary" compared to the "existentially terrifying" Get Out.[4] Peele has said that an inspiration for Us was The Twilight Zone episode "Mirror Image" that was centered on a young woman and her evil doppelgänger.[4]

Filming

Principal photography began on July 30, 2018 in Santa Cruz, California, including the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles, and the main house featured is located in Pasadena. The Stone/Wilson house had remodifications and the team spent six weeks there.[5] Filming wrapped on October 8, 2018.[6]

Visual effects

The visual effects are provided by Industrial Light & Magic and supervised by Grady Cofer.[7]

Music

Michael Abels, who previously scored Peele's Get Out, provided the soundtrack.

Marketing

The official trailer was released on December 25, 2018.[8] The trailer, which featured a darker version of the song "I Got 5 On It" by Luniz, featured a similar tone, editing, and shots as Peele's Get Out, prompting speculation that the two films were set in the same universe.[9]

A second trailer was released on February 3, 2019 for Super Bowl LIII. The trailer features a narration from Lupita Nyong'o's character Adelaide speaking with her husband Gabriel about the strange coincidences happening since they arrived at their beach house, describing it as a "black cloud" hanging over them. The new theatrical release date for March 22 was announced at the end of the trailer.[10]

Release

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 8, 2019.[11] The film was originally scheduled for theatrical release on March 15, 2019, but was pushed back a week to March 22, 2019, following the announcement of its South by Southwest premiere.[12]

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, initial tracking had Us grossing $35–40 million in its opening weekend.[13] By the week of its release, estimates had risen to $45–50 million, with advance ticket sales on Fandango outpacing A Quiet Place ($50.2 million) and Get Out ($33.7 million).[14]

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With Jordan Peele's second inventive, ambitious horror film, we have seen how to beat the sophomore jinx, and it is Us."[15] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[16]

Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four, writing that: "Us is another thrilling exploration of the past and oppression this country is still too afraid to bring up. Peele wants us to talk, and he's given audiences the material to think, to feel our way through some of the darker sides of the human condition and the American experience."[17] David Griffin of IGN gave it a 9.0 out of 10, writing it is a strange film with excellent character development, humor, music and cinematography to give an above average horror-thriller.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Us". AMC Theatres. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  2. ^ "Us (2019)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 30, 2019.
  3. ^ a b Griffin, David (March 9, 2019). "Us Review". IGN. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Hiatt, Brian (January 29, 2019). "The All-American Nightmares of Jordan Peele". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  5. ^ Pereira, Alyssa; SFGATE (September 13, 2018). "Jordan Peele filming movie in Santa Cruz with Lupita Nyong'o, Elisabeth Moss, Winston Duke". SFGate. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  6. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 30, 2018). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' Starts Production, Rounds Out Cast". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  7. ^ "Us - The Art of VFXThe Art of VFX". www.artofvfx.com. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  8. ^ "Us - Official Trailer [HD]". www.youtube.com. YouTube. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  9. ^ Jared Richards (December 27, 2018). "Here's Why Fans Think Jordan Peele's Next Film 'Us' Is Connected To 'Get Out'". Junkee. Retrieved December 27, 2018.
  10. ^ Kaplan, Ilana; Kaplan, Ilana (February 3, 2019). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' Reveals New Trailer Ahead of Super Bowl". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  11. ^ McNary, Dave (January 8, 2019). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' to Open SXSW Film Festival". Variety. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  12. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 8, 2019). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' To Hit Theaters A Week Later After Landing SXSW Opening Night Slot". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  13. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 28, 2019). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' Eyes $35M-$40M Opening – Early Look". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  14. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 19, 2019). "Jordan Peele's 'Us' To Leave 'Captain Marvel' In The Dust With $45M-$50M Opening". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  15. ^ "Us (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  16. ^ "Us Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  17. ^ Castillo, Monica. "Us Movie Review & Film Summary (2019) | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
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