Review of Get Out (2017) by Gerardistheway — 26 Mar 2017

Jordan Peele's first outing as a writer (co-writer, actually) on a major Hollywood production brought us the 2016 action-comedy "Keanu", a movie that was much better than it had any right to be given its absurd premise. Now, not only writing solo, Peele finds himself in the director's chair with "Get Out", a film that hundreds or even thousands of aspiring directors and screenwriters would kill to have as their first. Promised a race-savvy mix of comedy and horror going in, I can say first-hand that this movie does not disappoint. Peele has truly achieved something great here.

For those of you who haven't seen the trailers or have no friends who have gone to see it already (I would recommend moving out from under the rock beneath which you reside, in either circumstance), allow me to bring you up to speed with the rest of the viewing world. Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is preparing for the milestone of all milestones in dating: meeting the parents of his girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), Missy and Dean (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford, respectively). Now, this would be stressful enough as is, but the fact that Chris is black and Rose is white makes things even worse in the mind of the former. She implores him not to worry--Dean would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have, Chris (and the audience) are informed--but once they arrive, things take a turn away from the usual nervous, eager-to-impress overreactions into situations that are increasingly absurd and disturbing in equal measure. The growth in the number of older white people interested in him (Stephen Root), the strange behavior of the only other black people on the property (Betty Gabriel, Marcus Henderson, LaKeith Stanfield), and a seeming universally mutual desire to keep him cut off from his friends in the outside world (Lil Rey Howery) all lead Chris to believe that he has been brought to the Armitages' remote lake house for different purposes entirely (I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that yes, he has).

This could easily have been another forgettable, run-of-the-mill horror thriller that pits blacks against whites in the name of some cheap thrills and big box office returns. Luckily for Peele, he demonstrates immense skill as a writer, employing a sort of "less is more" strategy and simply putting together the pieces that he has assembled into a structure that audiences will understand as it is but contains other, more subtle ideas and meanings for them to discover with the use of a little brainpower. He's also careful not to give away too much too fast (as many others in the genre often do), and as the film first creeps and then full-on sprints towards its unbelievable conclusion, a twist better than any seen in horror in the last two decades--better even than the one in "Don't Breathe", or the hokey but effective 'the killer was the corpse in the bathroom' bit from "Saw"--is likely to have you on the edge of your seat, scared out of your wits but practically begging for more. Additionally, Peele works the horror-comedy angle effectively to provide much-needed comic relief when things start getting too serious, and the pitch-black humor thrown into some scenes (one that comes to mind is a time towards the beginning when, after learning of a car accident Chris and Rose were in because of a deer, Dean comments that he wants to "kill them all" because there are "just too many of them", unsettling his daughter's boyfriend) makes them all the sweeter for their unmatchable comic timing perfected on "Key and Peele". Perhaps best of all is--and hold on to your hats for this one, people--there is some real depth and complexity of character here beyond what is immediately obvious (*chorus of shocked gasps*). The white people in the film are not socially backwards, ultra-violent neo-Nazis. They are upper-middle class liberals, and they do what they do not because they hate blacks but, in a bit of a surprise reversal, because they adore them. As one character puts it, "Black is in style.".

It's great to me that Peele had such an amazing collection of talent, both in front of the camera and behind it, working to help his vision become what it was truly meant to be. The score by Michael Abels in particular stands out to me for its successful return of abrupt, screeching violin to horror movie soundtracks for the purposes of suspense creation (I could've sworn I was watching a John Carpenter film), and classic songs like "Run Rabbit Run" are used to hilariously frightening effect. Kaluuya is likable and even fascinating in some bits as the protagonist, Whitford is so friendly and charming as Dean that you hope and pray he doesn't turn out evil, and while I can't say too much without some major spoilers, Williams is effective in unexpected ways as Rose. The end result is utterly immaculate, and deservedly so.

I have only two things left to say. "Bravo!" is one. "More, please!" is the other.