Dissecting Jordan Peele's 'Us'

I think equating the explicitness of a theme with its quality or depth would be a mistake. If anything, it's the opposite: it's bad films that make their meaning too overt or didactic, or just straight-up have one of the characters state it. Better films are usually subtler.

Oh okay. Well what about a movie like Fail-Safe (1964) for example? In that movie, there are a lot of themes of cold war and politics, but if they had out a lot of those scenes, and instead made it about the chases and action with the plane fights, for a lot more of the screen time, would that have been better, because then the themes are in the background and much more subtle?

Haven't seen it, couldn't tell you. Probably case-by-case, just saying that a better theme is not necessarily a more explicit one, and if I had to choose, I'd say it leans the other way.

I completely agree. I think that great films function at both a "surface level" (ie the literal story) and at a deeper/thematic level.

One example I can think of is The Firemen's Ball. On just a superficial level, the film works well as a comedy about a celebration gone horribly wrong, with the worst being brought out in many people.

But the film also serves as an allegory for government (possibly specifically the Czechoslovak Communist, though it's hard to tell how much Foreman's denial of this is real and how much is due to pressure), and through that lens you can see the critique of corruption and how people who think of themselves as being good take very little to act out of greed.

I don't always mind when a theme or allegory is pushed to the front of a story. For example, the theme of consumerism in They Live is pretty blatant, and yet it's still a really fun movie. But leaning too heavily on just a theme can made a film feel hollow. The characters aren't people, they're symbolic placeholders.

I can't talk specifically about Us, not having seen it yet, but I felt that Peele found a good balance in Get Out. Because the racism itself is part of the horror for the main character, putting it at the forefront isn't an issue for me.

Oh okay, I think for me, the plot holes of Us, if they would be plot holes, are just a little too big for me, to the point where the themes suffered as a result, where as Get Out, I felt held together a lot better.

Does a movie like Battle Royale (1999), count as a missed opportunity movie when it came to exploring it's themes? I thought it could have explored them much more deeply, but instead, they are put in the background, for a lot of the plot being about the fight sequences.

I've skimmed over a few posts but I'll add some thoughts.

I thought this was a very good film. I enjoyed it more than Get Out but think that it suffers from a similar problem. The problem I found for both films are that they rely heavily on their concepts/premises which are overtly political and act as commentaries for various issues. This isn't a bad thing, I actually think it's a strength, both films are thought-provoking, if not in my opinion groundbreaking in the way that they examine the social makeup of our society.

But then come the third act, when the film draws closer towards a logical conclusion, seeking to tie up its narrative in some sort of "this makes sense" way, the films both end up feeling closer to cliche horror stories rather than giving us something absolutely satisfying. The ending to Us, especially the very final scene I thought was absolutely ridiculous, it made no sense and actually undermines most of the film so I just like to pretend that it doesn't exist. Then with Get Out, after he's in the chair I didn't really care that much.

I did find a lot of the film to be quite scary and unsettling though, I like the way Jordan Peele shot Us with his use of sounds, colours and in general the composition of certain shots/scenes. When I think of the film I can vividly remember dark colours, reds, blasting music, fire burning, actors' faces. It's left a lasting visual image.

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I think this one of the prime examples of something that wants to make the big leap but barely leaves the ground.

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I think this is a very good critique. It does a good job of explaining the ways both films are trying to square a circle, to have it both ways, and can't quite there. And I think it's interesting to see which thing takes priority, to the filmmaker. For Peele, it's more important for the theming and premise to be there, to engage you with the setup, and the logistics are a bit more of an afterthought.