Film Review: I Got Five on Us
posted by Keyona Smith | March 27, 2019 | In Arts and Culture, OpinionThe much-anticipated movie Us by Jordan Peele, creator and director of Get Out, has arrived and set the bar high for horror films to follow. In Us, a Black family is at the center of a thrilling plot full of symbolic elements. Whereas Peele has often called his 2017 debut “a documentary,” he has been clear that Us is firmly within the horror genre.
Personally, I am not a fan of the horror genre, but because Peele’s Get Out was so profound with its still-relevant controversial messages, I had to see what the buzz was about myself.
The use of a Black cast, including actors Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke at the forefront, is surely an inclusive gesture that I can appreciate. To be frank, I believe Peele’s use of colors against the melanin hue only added to the suspense of watching the actors disappear completely into the dark. It is important to note not only inclusivity, but also that it was more than just a “Black horror film.” It represented a family doing normal things like vacationing, and bonding – activities not often portrayed by Black actors in Hollywood films.
I spoke with students who have watched the movie to see how they felt about one particular symbol throughout the film. In an effort not to spoil it, I chose a symbol that may elicit several different interpretations: the rabbit. Mentioned a few times in the script, the rabbit was shown in various shots, in cages, hopping across the floor, and being eaten raw.
Kenwan Miles, a senior student at Fayetteville State University said that the movie exceeded his expectations. “Us was on the same level as Get Out. It was what I expected but still, a lot of the movie, I had no idea what to expect or what was going to happen,” said Miles. In regard to the interpretation of the rabbit, he says that was the only thing he could not grasp. “Thinking about it – test subjects – if people are really trying to find the technology to clone, they have to test it on something, so that may be what the rabbits were used to represent.”
Taylor Rorie, senior and communication major also compares Peele’s first movie to his second project saying that it definitely doesn’t upset or veer from what Get Out delivered. “The symbolism and the messages are something that you constantly worry about while you’re watching the movie,” Rorie said. “For me, the rabbit symbolized multiple copies and clones because of what people say about rabbits. People usually say when rabbits mate that they have a lot [of young].”
Certainly, I will be watching the film a couple more times to get a better personal understanding of what exactly the rabbit represents. For now, hats off to Jordan Peele. He has done it again and with a soundtrack to remember.
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