Ryan McNeil
Most of us like to believe we’re good people. We work hard, we help others, we’re ambitious for a higher station but without truly coveting. None of that is bad, is it? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to carve out a nice little life for ourselves, is there? It’s nothing that our parents didn’t do, or their parents too.
We believe these things so intently. The bigger issues, the really downtrodden and unfortunate? That has nothing to do with our lives. That’s them, not us.
Truly, in our soberest moments, we can look ourselves in the mirror and say that we are only taking our share.
But what if the mirror could look back and ask “…Really?…”
US begins in the late 80’s when a girl named Adelaide is taken to an amusement park near the pier in Santa Cruz. As the sun sets, she wanders away from her parents and slips into a fun house. What she sees inside will affect her life forever.
We soon skip forward to the present. Adelaide (Lupita N’yongo) has married Gabe (Winston Duke), and raised two beautiful children – Zora and Jason (Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex). The reasonably well-to-do family arrives for a seaside vacation, with Adelaide seeming a tad tense. Matters aren’t helped much when Jason wanders off and finds his way towards the same fun house. That night, Adelaide tensely reveals to Gabe what she endured as a child, and the profound impact it had on her adolescence.
Moments after she finishes her story, Jason breaks some strange news: There’s a family at the top of the drive standing in the dark, staring at the house.
Gabe’s posturing and threats don’t scare the strange family off, and in a flash, the intruders force their way into the lives of Adelaide and her brood. It’s then that everyone finally gets a closer look at the mystery guests and realize just how familiar they all seem. They’re more than familiar, in fact – they’re identical. Jason eventually puts a point on what – or who – the family is looking at:
“It’s us”.
The mother – “Red” (N’yongo again) – speaks for the group (eventually known as The “Tethered”). They are Americans. They have been overlooked. They have come to untether themselves from those that would keep them underfoot, and take what they are owed. The family is truly terrified at the revelation – Adelaide most of all. The truth slowly comes to light as Adelaide and her family fight for their lives.
US is a movie with class on its mind.
It wants the audience to consider that while they are sitting in a theatre and spending frivolous money on being entertained, that somewhere out there is someone a lot like them that would consider that a luxury. Just to twist the knife – or the scissors, as it were – just a little bit more, the movie also wants the audience to look up the road at what they covet…to the better theatre, with the better auditoriums, the reclining seats, and the gourmet eats. To our left is a group of people we try to ignore, and to our right is a smaller group of people we try to run with. The former we try not to see ourselves within; the latter we dream to be a part of.
On both sides are “them”. In the middle of it all, is “us”.
Make no mistake, if one wanted to, they could look at this story of doppelgängers rising up and take it at face value. One could see it as a creepy story of an upper-middle-class family trying to survive and be entertained.
Or one could look harder. Do we ever dare to look harder?
Do we care to notice, for instance, that the weapon of choice for The Teathered is an item so utilitarian it could be found almost anywhere. Does one notice that those scissors are tools for so many sorts of tradespeople? Should we actually worry about “them” rising up? Asking for their due? Taking it from us? Do we care to notice that when our so-called heroes fight back, every weapon they wield is an item of luxury (an SUV, a golf club, an expensive sculpture). We surround ourselves with these fancy items that we don’t need, and here is this movie asking us whether we are actually willing to wield them as weapons somehow?
(Sidebar: I fully accept that I am typing this point on one such item of luxury. I also accept that I would use said item as a weapon if need-be.)
What’s more, the film wants us to look at what status really affords us. Sure, we can put ourselves into bigger dwellings, with slicker rides, all wired-up for information and convenience. How much of this is all an illusion? We may be able to say “Hey Siri, Call for Help”, but if we haven’t truly done our part to help our fellow-man, then what should we really expect out of Siri?
Truly, US wants the audience to think about “Them”. It wants us to consider someone with our station or even or persona in a far less fortunate situation. It wants us to consider someone we have everything in common with except fortune, and dares us to still look them in the eye and say “Sorry – I can’t help you”.
This movie is a mosaic, and these ideas are the tiles. Stand back, and one can have a lot of fun just soaking in the twisted picture of sinister doubles rising up to take what they believe they are due. But step closer, and one considers the way each tile catches the light – this tile about truth, that tile about greed, another tile about station – and Jordan Peele’s mosaic becomes more intricately striking.