‘Us’: A Metaphorical Puzzle in a Good Way?
Jordan Peele seduces with the bloody mayhem.
By Jon Ochiai
In Writer and Director Jordan Peele’s “Us”, it all begins in 1986: Little African American girl Adelaide, played by Madison Curry, encounters her doppelganger in the carnival tent on the Santa Cruz beach; her eyes widen in terror.
Now 2019, on the family vacation car ride, Mom Adelaide Wilson, played by loving and beautiful Lupita Nyong’o, jokes with her children, daughter Zora, played by Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Halloween mask-wearing son Jason, played by Evan Alex. Adelaide and her husband Gabe, played by solid Winston Duke, drive to meet up with friends Kitty, (Elizabeth Moss), and Josh, (Tim Heidecker), and their twin daughters for their Santa Cruz summer holiday. Yeah, that’s Jordan’s discreetly frightful foreshadowing.
Funny. Santa Cruz might be an homage to Joel Schumacher’s 1987 “The Lost Boys”. Although, “Us” is not about the indigenous vampire. Jordan’s narrative is somewhat more sinister: Our “tethered” doppelgangers (personal doubles) possibly live in the millions of subterranean tunnels in the U.S.
Or so we are made to believe according to Jordan’s movie prefaced research.
