I love US. I saw this movie when it was in theaters, and I jumped at the chance to see it again, so I actually conscripted people to see it again — because even though I’ve seen it, it’s still scary.

I actually saw this movie for the first time in Canada, visiting a friend; I remember this detail, because there’s a line in the movie where the main family asks, terrified, to the other family,

“who are you?” and the evil family replies in a choked voice,

“we’re Americans!”

The entire theater of Canadians laughed, for some reason, and I have no idea why to this day. In the movie, I think it’s meant as commentary on the American condition. A theme from the film is the Hands Across America movement, to end hunger, and family remains at the heart of the film, so it’s safe to say that the American Dream is important to the film’s message. Since the film has a good family, and an evil family, the message seems to be that this dream can be twisted.

After watching “Get Out,” I was a bit disappointed with the lack of social relativity Jordan Peele’s subsequent movie “Us” contained. I don’t know if I misunderstood the movie, but I felt it was a strong deviation from what Peele had done before. I had set myself up for disappointment by letting “Get Out” establish a bar.

I think “Us” was more for entertainment purposes than social mobilization, but even then I felt it was a bit predictable. The beginning got on my nerves because the parents were so irresponsible. I didn’t understand the relevance of the bunnies or the old scissors, and I’m not sure what the whole Hands Across American thing was about.

However, it was fun to watch, and it gave me and my roommate something to debate about afterwards.

Leading up to viewing this movie, I had pretty high expectations. I saw Jordan Peele’s prior film, “Get Out”, so I knew what to expect going into this film. I ended up being absolutely amazed at what the result was. It was an eerie, dark, and intense film that ends with an incredible plot twist. It left a statement about who we are as people and who we are as Americans. While there were definitely numerous plot holes in the story, I still found myself on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what would happen. The people in our share a soul with those that were a part of a government experiment with those called the Tethered. The Tethered rise above the ground and kill all of the ones who they share souls with that they can. Afterward, they show their oppression by replicating the “Hands Across America” campaign.

In the movie Us, the tethered family was seen torturing the ‘normal’ family for most of the film. Its easy to say this was wrong of them, but when I analyzed the film and took a closer look, I decided that we can’t blame them for how they acted. How are we supposed to feel about these shadow people? Well, for so long they’ve been deprived of basic human rights—including daylight. So much so that they have become murderous and insensitive. These tethered people, for me, represent the self-destructive tendencies that we all possess. We all have darker sides that we are able to hold in most times. The movie, however shows those sides manifested, and displays how dangerous we can be for ourselves.

I think this film does a good job holing suspense and creating fear within the audience. I’ll never look at a red jumpsuit or scissors the same way after seeing this film.

On Friday, I went to the showing of Us. I had seen the movie before, but this time I decided to think about what the movie was trying to say to the audience rather than what the plot was. In the movie, the characters each discover their evil doppelgänger. These doppelgängers look exactly like the characters, but each have some evil characteristic about them. I think that the premise of the movie is trying to talk about the duality of human nature. By this I mean how humans tend to ignore their true selves, metaphorically speaking. As a society, we tend to not want to take a hard look in the mirror and acknowledge who we really are as people, because if we were to see our true selves, we may not see what we thought we would. This idea was very interesting to me as I am currently taking a few psychology courses. Made me think a lot about the human mind and all that we have to learn about it!

This is my second time watching the movie movie Us; the second time watching the movie, I definitely noticed a lot of motifs and started to realize a lot of the symbolism that the movie entailed. The movie starts out with a commercial of the “Hands Across America” campaign, which was a campaign where everyone regardless of age, gender and ethnicity would come out, hold hands and collect funds for those in poverty. Throughout the beginning scene, there is a prevalent motif of the numbers 1111 referring to Jeremiah 11:11 hinting at an apocalyptic world that is about to come about (hence making a reference point for the resolution of the movie). As the plot goes on and the movie turns on to the genere of a slasher film of doppelgangers trying to kill and replace Adelaine and her family, we come to realize that many other characters who seem to be human are actually doppelgangers of people they had killed. In fact, even though the audience had been led to root for Adelaine Wilson and her family, we learn that she herself was a doppelganger. In the beginning of the movie, the undergrounders(doppelgangers) appear as those who attack us; but I began to realize that in reality, the doppelgangers can be interpreted as a side of everyone who strive so hard to refrain from being discriminated and left out and could be a reflection of the US even, a culmination and a melting pot of so many different cultures. Another interesting symbolism that I noticed this time were the rabbits. Rabbits were the first animal to have been successfully cloned, hence signifying the dopplegangers. At the opening of the movie, we see caged rabbits. This symbolizes how doppelgangers and, hence, we are being suppressed in the world we live in. In later parts of the movie, these rabbits are out of their cages. This shows how suppressed parts of us can eventually rebel and act out, causing a somewhat apocalyptic consequence as previously hinted by the motif of 111. Considering that the Hands Across America campaign wasn’t successful in ending poverty, this movie seems to speak a lot about discrimination, poverty and diversity. I am glad that I watched this movie a second time because I am definitely noticing so many interesting motifs and symbols placed deliberately within the movie.

When Us was released last year, through word of mouth and online reviews, I knew that this movie was one I had to see. 

Throughout the film, the attention to detail, the use of symbolism and metaphors, and the underlying themes and messages combine to make this movie one that would have to be watched multiple times in order to be able to fully comprehend and appreciate its deeper meaning. 

One of the scenes that stuck out to me most was that when Adelaide asked who Red was, the response Red gave was that the tethered were “Americans.”

I believe that there could be several ways to interpret this line, however, the most obvious to me is that this is a criticism of American society and culture. 

I believe that the movie criticizes the materialistic way of life that some choose to pursue. For instance, we can see that the Tylers seem to be in pursuit of material happiness. They have a new boat, a new car, a summer home, yet they are not truly happy. It is obvious to the audience that the marriage between Kitty and John is not a happy one: Kitty seems to be an alcoholic and Josh seems to encourage it. They may appear to be a perfect family, yet they are far from it.

Furthermore, though the Wilsons and the Tylers both seem to be well off, the Tylers always seem to want to “outdo” the Wilsons. The Tylers flaunt their new car, live in a more “modern” house, and live across the lake from the Wilsons. The fact that the Wilsons and the Tylers live on opposite sides of the lake reminds of the “East” and “West Egg” idea introduced in The Great Gatsby, hinting at a similar criticism of the wealth disparities in modern society today. At the same time, the underlying message of racial injustice is another theme implied several times throughout the movie.  

As a whole, Us was an enjoyable and thought provoking movie. It is one that I look forward to watching again and again to look for any details I missed the first time around!

After having watched both “Us” and “Get Out”, I’ve found Jordan Peele’s inclusion of the complexity behind decision making to be particularly interesting. At the very end of “Get Out”, the main character has to make a conscious decision of needing to “get out” in any means possible.

Spoilers for everyone who still hasn’t seen “Get Out”, but at the end of the movie the main character has to make the decision to kill his captors in order to finally be free. Although Jordan Peele purposefully excluded the aftermath of the decision, there is a deleted scene on youtube that showcases our main character in jail speaking to his friend about the events prior to his imprisonment. It’s almost like showing the aftermath would have distracted from the audience’s ability to empathize with our main character’s decision-making process. If he had shown the consequences of killing his captors, we could have had the passing thought of “was it worth it? To be labeled as insane for having these theories and never being able to see the light of daylight again?

On the other hand, in “Us”, the ending presents a way of understanding how one decision can be the catalyst for a whole chain reaction of events. It’s almost like in “Get Out”, Jordan Peele presented the lead up to what can cause a person to make a drastic decision, and “Us” is an answer to the question of “what happens when we make these drastic decisions?”

She has been here before. 

It is clear from the unease and disquiet in her eyes that she is terrified. Adelaide’s terror of the “to come” derives from a knowledge: the certainty of an incalculable encounter that is coming. She tried to evade her past and this encounter, living her life in deferral.  She has carried with her a knowledge of the tethered as one of the tethered: each self has an other to which they are bound. They live only in separation, the one buried beneath the other, until Adelaide’s return to Santa Cruz. At the encounter with the other and the self, one must die, neither can live with the other: only one has the possibility of survival. Peele attempts to undermine what we conceive of as natural, given, authentic, or organic. Adelaide, as one of the tethered, adapted to the world above ground, moving from the silence of aphasia and learning to speak. To Peele, we can learn ourselves otherwise and there is a certain demand for vigilance within ourselves. The question, then, is why America. Perhaps the most obvious response is the false narratives of progress we place our unyielding faith in. We believe in a teleological end, a grand movement towards absolute knowledge and improvement which is all but mythological. History, if anything, an affirmation of placements and displacements of racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. We believe ourselves to be the one above while we ourselves be acting as the one below. Peele’s film speaks most to our responsibility to the other which begins with the most uncanny other: the one which has the greatest proximity to us of which we know nothing, who deposits a memory in Us that refuses to be forgotten.

Us was a very dynamic movie that, though I enjoyed watching, I left leaving like I would need to watch it again to full grasp what went on within. One thing I really liked and admired about it was the use of symbolism. There was symbolism in the imagery of the Native American welcoming Adelaide when she went to the beach as a child, but the imagery switching to a wizard. I felt it was showing how the location was cloaked by a “PC” exterior to cover up its racist and horrific foundation. There was also symbolism in the repetition of a bible verse in the movie. The allusion in the movie was also great as Jordan Peele paid a lot of homage to the Shining with the twins, the overhead shot of the family driving, and the tethered holding the scissors like the ax in the Shining. The last part I enjoyed the most about the movie was the actors’ performance. I believe Lupita Nyong’o was absolutely stunning to watch as she portrayed such drastically polar characters with such nuance, which was exactly what was needed to show us that those characters were really not as different as they seemed.

There is a lot to unpack from the movie, Us. And while, on the surface, the movie succeed in scaring me, it also delivered some interesting metaphors behind the story of us vs. them. Throughout the movie, we get a sense of the animalistic vs. human nature theme from Adelaide and her doppelgänger, Red. It was revealed towards the end, where it turns out that “Adelaide” is actually the tethered that replaced the real Adelaide when she was younger. This grand reveal questioned the audience of how can we differentiate human nature/characteristics to what is considered barbaric/animalistic.

Another theme present in the movie is the idea of the idea of privilege. While tethered people look the same as any other human, they were abandoned, as their counterparts have freedom to roam above the ground. In fact, the director, Jordan Peele, said that “For us to have our privilege, someone suffers. … [and that] those who suffer and those who prosper are two sides of the same coin.” Peele used his movie to tell his audience about the close relationship between the privilege and those who suffer.

Quote from: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/us-director-jordan-peele-explains-what-his-horror-/1100-6467817/

There is a lot to discuss within the movie Us, but the scene that stuck out to me the most was when they were showing young Adelaide Wilson’s and her thethered soul’s fates align. The scene followed the underworld version of Adelaide walk through the tunnel as the Adelaide in the real world was going through an amusement park. The comparison showed the people in the real world on a roller coaster ride, but the people in the tunnel merely made the motion of being on a roller coaster. My first thought was how weird the people in the tunnel looked making pointless motions like putting their hands to their mouths repeatedly and then it made sense when the screen showed the people at the carnival eating. This made me question whether this scene is telling us that we are just going through the motions of life like the people in the tunnel without any purpose. Our meaning in this world is unknown, but as Albert Camus would argue, it is our mission to assign an essence to the things we do.

Us, is filled with symbolism and metaphors; the movie made it glaringly clear that there was a deeper meaning behind the story by using various recurring motifs such the colors red and white, rabbits, and scissors, but there was an underlying ambiguity that made it difficult to pin down what ideas the movie is trying to convey to the audience. However, it is obvious that there is an overarching theme about identity (after all, the movie is titled “Us”). When the movie reveals that Red is actually the human Adelaide, and that the Adelaide on the surface is actually the tethered Adelaide from underground, it forces us to retract our previous notions of “good” and “bad” and re-evaluate the characters. Throughout the movie, Adelaide is seen as the protagonist, protecting her family against the doppelganger villains. However, when we learn that she is actually a tethered, this overturns our previous perspective of Adelaide. Before the switch, tethered Adelaide was forced to live underground, eating raw rabbits and unable to see the light of day, while surface Adelaide could go to carnivals and live a normal life. It is understandable that one would want to seek a better life for oneself, and so tethered Adelaide kidnaps surface Adelaide and forgets her previous life underground. However, the real Adelaide becomes Red, and like her tethered counterpart, seeks to give not only herself but also the other tethered a better life by staging an uprising and un-tethering themselves from their surface counterparts. During the scene when Adelaide kills Red, she lets out a disturbingly primal growl that is similar to the language of the tethered, which is a subtle hint that she is actually a tethered. That brief moment when she reveals her tethered side shows that she is not much different from Red, and that Red is not much different from Adelaide. Even though the tethered are portrayed as the “others,” violent monsters that are vastly different from humans, Adelaide’s human characteristics and Red’s tethered characteristics suggest otherwise. Throughout the film, there is seemingly a clear cut line between the good (humans) and the bad (tethered), but through both Adelaides, it seems that they are actually one and the same, that both tethered and humans are us.

I felt the movie US was trying so hard to teach me something that, for me, it became labored and boring.  There seemed to be holes in the story, and by the end I had more questions than answers.  No doubt there was some deep symbolism that I was supposed to work hard to grasp and appreciate, but who wants to work so hard when watching a horror movie?   I watch horror movies to have fun and unwind, not to feel like I will not be regarded as a good person anymore if I don’t fully understand the story’s finely crafted inner meaning.   At the end of the movie, I found myself a little confused, sort of like trying to accept the Back to the Future trilogy or the Terminator movies.  Judging from the questions asked by others at the end of the movie, I was not alone in being confused.  The plot twist at the end was the best part of the movie, but for me it was too little too late.  On the positive side, I really liked the movie Get Out.

After watching Jordan Peele’s Us (2019), I can say that it is one of my favourites (even if, in my opinion, it does not quite live up to his 2017 movie, Get Out).  I was particularly impressed by his brilliant use of symbolism, camera angles and techniques, and attention to detail in the film.  In traditional Peele fashion, everything down to the shirt young protagonist Addy Wilson wears at the beginning is on purpose (I think that the “Thriller” reference to Michael Jackson represents the theme of division, as he was controversial and both admired and hated by many).  At first, I was confused by what Peele was trying to convey with the idea of everyone having a doppelgänger from the suffering community called the Tethered.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised just how genius and necessary the metaphor is; I believe that Peele uses this light-versus-shadow persona concept to illustrate and criticise class divisions and inequality in the United States today.  The people on the surface—the privileged—enjoy happy lives, while the Tethered—members of the lower classes—are forced underground, abandoned, and soulless.  The director hammers this message home most notably at two different times: the first time when Addy’s doppelgänger, Red, says of the Tethered, “we’re Americans” (implying that even those who are less fortunate should not be neglected); and the second time with the ending dolly of the Tethered joining hands across hills serving as a twenty-first century version of the 1986 Hands Across America event that fought hunger and homelessness.  Overall, I think that the movie was very well written and shot in terms of its surface enjoyability, acting performances, and underlying themes.  As someone who loves to analyse films in detail, I will definitely be watching Us and its terrifying jump-scares again to catch anything that I missed the first time!  I wonder what the significance of Jason, as opposed to Zora or Gabe, being the one to suspect that Addy is the true doppelgänger is.

During the movie Us, the audience is introduced to a young girl who experiences an event that she would never forget. While detouring away from her parents at a carnival, she stumbles upon a tunnel, where she meets her look-a-like, her shadow. The sinister music in the background led the audience to believe something happened to the girl. After this traumatizing event, she never spoke of the event. As an adult, she comes back to the carnival with her husband and children but soon finds out that it was a big mistake, as her childhood nightmare become her worst fear. After a suspicious knock at her door, her family meets up with their look-a-likes, who are plotting to kill her and her family. A significant twist happens at the end. The details in the movie eliminated certain portions that would hint to the audience the ending of the film. The twist at the end was unexpected. However, the sinister music that was heard at the beginning of the movie when she was at the carnival occurred again when she went back to the location of the carnival years later. Additionally, many coincidences kept happening, where she believed that something was after her. Her biggest fear is losing her kids in the same tunnel she was lost in as a child, that traumatized her terribly. She fought to keep her children safe and went to any extent to do that. However, in the end, it was more than just traumatizing for her; the audience finds out that she lost her actual life, meaning that her shadow switched lives with her. The audience believed that her shadow coming back to her was the real Adelaide getting revenge on the shadow for ruining her life. The whole time the audience was on the side of the main character, who we thought was the real Adelaide; however, with the plot twist, it is hard to determine who you would support.

Right in time for the Halloween season, I had the opportunity to watch “Us,” the horror film by Jordan Peele. I have watched this movie before when it first came out. I remember feeling very confused about what the plot symbolized, and I remain pretty confused after the second viewing. As one of the audience members from tonight voiced during the post-movie discussion, it feels like there is some deep symbolism, but it’s cloudy.

In the movie, everybody has their own doppelgänger who lives in an alternate word underground. Adelaide and her family are on a vacation when their underground doppelgängers arrive to kill them. Other doppelgängers are doing the same in a concerted attempt to “untether” themselves from their lives of imprisonment. It is revealed at the end that their movements are forced to mirror exactly what the people in the “real” world chose to do; they do not have any agency over their life. For food, they are forced to eat rabbits “raw and bloody” (Red’s description). Because they were suffering while simultaneously being controlled by the free will of the people in the real world, it is understandable that they are angry. The first time watching this movie, I did not know any of this until the very end, so this time around I got to see the earlier scenes through a new lens with this context in mind. I found that I was able to sympathize a little more with the murderous doppelgängers–although, for the record, still not very much.

The huge plot twist at the end is mind-blowing to me… Mostly because it still feels like there are some inconsistencies in the story that don’t make sense. I wish we got to discuss the movie a little bit more at the end, because I would love to hear what other people interpreted. I’ll definitely be surfing the internet tonight to try an understand the deeper message!