A Brief Review of Jordan Peele's 2017 Film, Get Out (Contains Spoilers)

Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a thrilling and entertaining commentary on racial tensions, which quickly escalates from just being that awkward experience with a privileged white family, to being a truly terrifying concept that somehow feels uncomfortably close to possible. Though exaggerated, I found it to be a disturbing reminder of the abuses powerful people have inflicted throughout history, and how frail morality seems to get when one actually has the means to do a thing without consequence.

That said, I’ve also seen Jordan’s most recent film, Nope, which also stars Daniel Kaluuya, and I’ve got to say that I really appreciate how this actor is somehow the perfect person to be put into extraordinary circumstances and play it incredibly believably. His acting isn’t over the top, and it never seems like he’s trying too hard to express anything. You can see his thoughts and emotions happening internally. He makes you relate to the circumstances he’s going through even though you’ll never experience them.

As far as plot goes, it was obvious something strange was happening, but I didn’t figure out exactly what was going on until it was eventually spelled out for me, and I would have never guessed their reasoning for doing it. I appreciate a film that I can’t predict right from the start. I went from thinking the girlfriend was just oblivious, but the only one he could trust, to thinking the blind man was going to be on his side, to thinking maybe the crazy brother was going to end up being the only actual sane one who had really just been trying to scare him away before it was too late, but was wrong all around.

And when it comes to dialogue, I really appreciated the creatively underhanded little jabs and hints scattered throughout, most of which were made by the father, like when referencing his hatred of “deer” and the “black mold” sealed in the basement. Before you know the true nature of the family it just makes you uncomfortable because it reminds you of the closet-racist uncle we all seem to have to deal with, who says things as close to crossing a line as possible, but pretends it’s totally unintentional if you ever call them on it.

To end this I’ll just say, there are some movies which fail to catch my attention. There are some movies that make me feel like I’m taking a mental trudge through a swamp of flat jokes and shallow meaning.

This was not one of those movies.