'Us' Review: Three Reasons To See It |

The minute we heard Jordan Peele was heading back to theaters with Us, his follow-up to Get Out, we were in. Didn’t need a trailer, didn’t need to see any set photos, didn’t even need a synopsis. It was Jordan Peele, and it was horror. We were there. But then we did get the first terrifying and trippy trailer, and, well, it didn’t disappoint. Atmospheric, unsettling, and deeply disturbing, it was everything we could have hoped for.

Lupita Nyong’o leads the others as Adelaide Wilson, former dancer, wife of Gabe (Winston Duke) and mom to two kids, Zora (Shahidi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex). They take what’s supposed to be a relaxing family vacation to the seaside, but their quiet getaway becomes quite literally a life-or-death situation when their vacation home is invaded by a dopplegänger family. The rest is full of gripping intensity and unexpected twists as the Wilsons realize they can never escape themselves.

So does it live up to the hype? Is it a worthy successor to Get Out? Here are three reasons to see Us when it hits theaters.

1. Trademark Blend Of Humor And Horror

For as tense and skin-crawling as Us is, it’s still Jordan Peele – there will be at least some comedic elements. While Get Out had its deadpan moments, Us is flat-out funny in between the screams. This is thanks largely to 2018’s Breakout Internet Daddy Winston Duke, who plays Gabe as lovable but clueless, with an unearned swagger that elicits laugh as it suits him so poorly (Gabe, that is, not Duke). If Hollywood is wise, someone will immediately hop to writing a rom-com vehicle for Duke to star in after this. We got glimpses of his comedic timing in Black Panther, but, strangely enough, it’s Us that cements his potential as a legitimate comedy lead.

Wright Joseph and Alex also get their chances to pull laughs from the audience, thanks largely to them doing, well, what siblings do – low-key antagonize each other while driving their parents crazy. The mundaneness of the Wilsons’ family life juxtaposed with their deadly struggle to survive creates a dissonance that pulls a laugh out of you even while thinking get in the car get in the car stop arguing about who gets to drive and just GET IN THE CAR. In the hands of a lesser director, it might be tonally jarring; in the hands of Jordan Peele, it elevates the genre. Again.

2. Watching Jordan Peele Turn Into Something Else

Speaking of Peele, something dawned on me as I watched Us, packed into the Paramount Theatre in Austin with a thousand other SXSW-goers: We’re lucky to be alive in a time where we can witness the rise of Jordan Peele into a truly transcendent filmmaker. He and Keegan-Michael Key showed they were savvy at having their fingers on the pulse of the zeitgeist from the time of Key & Peele, but since then, Peele has become something more. Get Out was revelatory. It changed the way we thought about horror forever. While Us might not be quite as effective as Peele’s breakout directorial debut, it is, in ways, even more wildly ambitious and boundary-pushing. Peele isn’t interested in just scaring us; he wants to dissect what it means to be human – in particular, American – while he does it. The result is that Peele’s films become instant classics; we’ll be discussing Us for months if not years to come. There are hundreds of mediocre-to-good filmmakers in Hollywood; a few dozen great ones. Rarely does someone come along that completely transforms a genre; even more rare is one who also transforms how we look at ourselves. But this is what Jordan Peele has done in his first two feature films. He’s here to change Hollywood. I’m just grateful we have a front row seat.

3. Lupita Nyong’o Is Breathtakingly Good

One thing is for sure, actors will go to the mat for Jordan Peele. He’s a director who pulls performances out of actors that elevate them to an entirely new level. In Us, Lupita Nyong’o gives an award-worthy performance as two entirely different people. The work she does here is extraordinary, the kind of performance that makes you go, “Oh, I knew she was good but I didn’t see that coming.” As Adelaide, she is full of tense nerves and haunted memories that slowly transition into a tiger-mom fierceness when she has nothing to lose. As her “shadow,” she is guttural, terrifying, unhinged. The brilliance is that she’s also still sympathetic. Last year it was Toni Collette’s mesmerizing performance in Hereditary that got overlooked; let’s hope Nyong’o doesn’t suffer the same fate this year simply because her performance came in a horror movie.

Us is in theaters on March 22nd. Get your tickets here.