US : Tuesday 2nd April 2019.

And so Jordan Peele here brings us his highly anticipated and already critically acclaimed American psychological horror thriller film 'US' which I saw earlier this week. Peele also Co-Produced with Jason Blum, and wrote the Screenplay. Following hot on the heels of his previous also acclaimed debut feature 'Get Out' in 2017, the film saw its World Premier screening at SXSW in early March and went on wide release in the US on 22nd March and a week later here in Australia. Made for US$20M the film has so far grossed US$181M and in its opening weekend debuted at US$71.1M, the second best opening for a live-action original film after 2009's 'Avatar' and the third-best total for a horror film after 2017's 'It' and 2018's 'Halloween'. The film has also generated widespread Critical and audience acclaim.

It is the Summer of 1986, on Santa Cruz Beach, and the young Adelaide Thomas (Madison Curry) is out for the evening at the beachside amusement park with her parents. While her parents are distracted, Adelaide wanders off down to the waters edge, and upon returning is enticed into a funhouse. At first all seems relatively normal, until the lights go out, and the place is plunged into darkness and silence. Adelaide begins to whistle to calm her nerves, only to have an unknown presence whistle the same tune right back at her. Then in a hall of mirrors she comes across a doppelgänger of herself, but this is no reflection looking back at her. A short time later Adelaide is reunited with her parents, but is unable to speak.

We then fast forward to the present day and Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke are married couple Adelaide Wilson (the now grown up Adelaide Thomas) and Gabriel 'Gabe' Wilson, who together with their son Jason (Evan Alex) and daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) are en route to their family beachside home in Santa Cruz where they plan on spending some quality family time. Gabe is keen on visiting Santa Cruz Beach later that afternoon and has already made plans to meet up with good friends Kitty and Josh Tyler (Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker respectively) and their twin kids Gwen and Maggie (Cali and Noelle Sheldon). Adelaide however, is fearful and anxious about returning to Santa Cruz Beach given her experiences there as a young child, and attempts (albeit unsuccessfully) to dissuade Gabe from the trip. Reluctantly Adelaide agrees and the family drives off catching up with the Tylers at the beach. All is good, until young Jason wanders off to use the toilet. Upon returning Jason is distracted by a man wearing a red jump suit, standing motionless on the sand and bleeding from the hands. Adelaide is distraught about her missing son, and when he returns moments later she chides him, before hugging him. He does not mention the man he saw.

Later that same night, a strange family of four appears in the driveway of the Wilson's home. Initially, they stand there motionless in the moonlight, all wearing the same red jumpsuit, and all holding hands. Their menacing presence lasts for about five minutes, with Gabe becoming increasingly agitated by their presence, to the point where he retrieves a baseball bat from inside the house and threatens them if they do not leave his property immediately.

Within a few minutes the red suited family begin attacking the Wilson family home and forcibly gaining entry. The Wilsons quickly realise that the four intruders are in fact doppelgängers of themselves, led by Adelaide's double, Red (Lupita Nyong'o). Each of them is wearing the same red jumpsuit as the man Jason saw on the beach, and Jason's doppelgänger Pluto (Evan Alex) is wearing a white skintight mask over his head and covering his face. 

Red, is the only doppelgänger who speaks while the others grunt, and she tells the Wilsons the story of a girl who lives a happy life while her shadow suffers. The family is then separated by their opposite selves : Red makes Adelaide shackle herself to a table, Zora is pursued by Umbrae (Shahadi Wright Joseph), Gabe is dragged onto the motor boat he had rented for the duration of their break by Abraham (Winston Duke), and Jason is charged to go off and 'play' with Pluto in a cupboard. 

While chasing Zora on foot, Umbrae is interrupted by a neighbour who has come outside to see why Umbrae is standing on the roof of his car. She jumps down and stabs the neighbour with a pair of gold scissors so allowing Zora to escape. Gabe is able to kill Abraham with his boat's problematical and temperamental motor, while Jason quickly learns that Pluto mirrors his actions almost exactly. Jason removes a mask he has been wearing on and off since their arrival, and in so doing Pluto does likewise revealing that half his face is disfigured by a severe burn when he was younger. He is able to distract Pluto with a magic trick and escape, leaving Pluto locked in the cupboard. Red is drawn to Pluto's cries for release, allowing Adelaide the time to break free. The family regroups and is able to escape on Gabe's boat as Red, Umbrae and Pluto come down to the waters edge to see them motor off into the moonlight.

Meanwhile, at the Tyler household not far away, their house is broken into and the family of four are murdered by their identical selves. The Wilsons arrive expecting to find safe harbourage but are forced to kill the Tyler doubles in what turns out to be a bloodbath using the good old trusted baseball bat, a golf club and a heavy stone crystal ornament. With the Tylers and their doubles dead and blood spattered walls and furniture all round them, in a surreal moment they sit around the dining table eating snacks and turn on the news to see that millions of doppelgängers, calling themselves 'the Tethered', have risen up in their red jumpsuits and committed murders against their real counterparts across the US. The doppelgängers subsequently join hands together to form a massive human chain, which the news channels speculate is some form of protest.

Upon seeing the news, Adelaide takes charge of their situation and suggests that they should get as far away as possible, and drive down to Mexico. The Wilsons drive away in the Tylers' car with Zora behind the wheel. They are attacked by Umbrae, who is launched while clinging onto the bonnet into a tree, by a sudden braking manoeuvre. Adelaide gets out of the car to investigate where Umbrae might be and finish her off once and for all. She discovers the broken body of Umbrae hanging from the branches of a tree and she dies shortly afterwards. As day breaks, the Wilsons arrive at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where they find their own abandoned car set ablaze. 

Pluto is waiting in front of the burning car and has set a trap to kill the Wilsons by laying a trail of petrol to the Tyler's car, but Jason, remembering that Pluto mirrors his every move, walks backward so that Pluto also steps backwards into the burning car and is consequently burned to death. In all the commotion, Red reappears and takes Jason. 

With Adelaide now giving chase to Red in an attempt to find her son, Zora and Gabe find refuge in an abandoned ambulance located behind the now abandoned Santa Cruz Beach amusement park, through which now runs a long line down to the ocean of red jump suit wearing body doubles all holding hands. Adelaide returns to the boardwalk funhouse and walks through a secret tunnel in the hall of mirrors. This leads to an underground facility overrun by rabbits, where Adelaide finds Red.

Red, with her back towards Adelaide and snipping away at paper stood facing a blackboard states that the Tethered were created by the U.S. government decades ago in an attempt to control the public, but the experiment failed and the Tethered were abandoned in an extensive network of underground tunnels and facilities. For generations, they were trapped beneath the surface hidden from view and without any knowledge of their above ground doubles. All they could do was mimic the actions of their counterparts on the surface until Red devised a cunning and meticulous plan for them to escape, which took a very look time to coordinate and execute. The two fight, with Red gaining the upper hand until Adelaide manages to kill Red with the fire poker she has held onto since the prior night. She locates Jason hiding in a locker and rescues him, returning to the surface to meet up with Gabe and Zora. They drive out of the amusement park avoiding the long line of red suited Tethered individuals all holding hands.

'Us' is a worthy follow up to 'Get Out' and here Jordan Peele delivers a genre bending film that has its roots firmly bedded in home invasion horror at the hands of menacing doppelgängers, thriller, drama and with just a sprinkling of Sci-Fi offering blood and death, just the right amount of humour and edge of your seat action to propel the film to all the acclaim it deserves. As for the meaning behind all of this, well that remains open for discussion long after the credits have rolled and the curtain has dropped. Suffice to say the twin performances of Lupita Nyong'o especially is exemplary as she inhabits two very different characters struggling with who and what they are and what motivates them both to survive their living nightmares. Like 'Get Out' Peele has created another original story that further cements his career as an unconventional Director and a storyteller of repute, and a film that is sure to become a classic. 

'Us' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-