Jordan Peele

  • Us (2019)

    Us (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) As an outspoken fan of writer-director Jordan Peele’s Get Out, my hopes were high for his follow-up Us … and they were dashed. There are a few things I like here: Lupita Nyong’o’s performance, a clever framing of mysterious underground places, a character inversion that, on paper, sounds good, and a provocative metaphor about (among other things) class revolution. The problems, however, start from what I seem is a fundamental mishandling of genre fiction. To put it simply (and you can look elsewhere on this site for the analysis of genre devices), the advantage that genres such as Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror have over other kinds of fiction is in literalizing the metaphor: You can take tough-to-portray concepts and make them into a monster and it works both at the literal level (the monster is chasing them!) and the metaphorical level (they are being chased by their anxieties!)  But the fundamental requirement of that approach is that it must work on the basic level before the metaphor comes into play. If it doesn’t, the best-case scenario is that the haughty neighbourhood nitpicker (like me!) will tear the story apart without figuring out the metaphor; the worst-case scenario is that even base viewers will squint their eyes and sense the disconnect, often saying, “Wait, that doesn’t make sense.”  Disbelief not being suspended, the film fails. This is exactly what happens with Us, in which an underground conspiracy that has surface appeal as a metaphor for wider social issues falls apart on examination of the most basic justification. The amount of “No, wait, that doesn’t make sense” is so obvious and frequent that it obscures whatever Peele was trying to say here—a fatal failing in trying for ambitious commentary. Get Out had that perfect union of literal and thematic—but Us (or rather, maybe, U.S.) loses its way and never makes it back. By the time the final scene rolls, it does so in pure incomprehension of what it hasn’t earned. What a disappointment. I’m sure Pelle will rebound.

  • Get Out (2017)

    Get Out (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2017) Life is made of strange coincidences. So it is that I sat down to watch Get Out as the results of the US Senate Special Alabama election of 2017 were coming in, an election that offered as clear cut a choice between a typical candidate and a far-right activist with documented episodes of racism, sexism and pedophilia. A fitting backdrop to Get Out, which is a daring take on race relations by way of comic horror. While the starting point of the film may seem familiar—a young white woman takes her new black boyfriend home to meet her parents—the film quickly takes a turn for the bizarre and then the terrifying as the protagonist realizes that he’s in grave danger. To tell more about the premise is irresistible, as it encapsulates the nature of racial relations at a time when it’s not polite to be racist. To my dismay, I could recognize a bit of my own tics in the oh-so-subtle racism expressed by upper-class whites toward our protagonist. The horror elements get more and more intense as the film goes on, although they are partially defused by a comic subplot that seems to belong in another film. Daniel Kaluuya is good as the hero, but Catherine Keener and Allison Williams are far more interesting in their insidiousness. Writer/director Jordan Peele has some notoriety in comedy as part of the Key & Peele duo, but his eye and attention for detail as a filmmaker is terrific—Get Out has a pleasant amount of depth and craft in its details, with a script in which most lines (including the titular quote) have more than one meaning. It’s solid filmmaking and I was quite taken by the result despite taking in my own lumps as a left-leaning well-meaning kind-of-oblivious white guy. I suspect that my just-shy-of-enthusiasm reaction may have been helped along by the real-world events unfolding via my telephone screen as I watched the movie. As all hope seemed lost for our protagonist on-screen, electoral results suggested a comfortable lead for the worst candidate. But as the movie wrapped to a close and fortunes shifted for our protagonist, so did the electoral results, with the better candidate taking a comfortable lead right before the credits started rolling. The ongoing discussion about racism may take the form of an entertaining movie or a statewide election, but it needs to take place. Sometimes, the stars even align and you get both a great movie and an election result that feels like progress at the same time.

  • Keanu (2016)

    Keanu (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, August 2016) Noted comedy duo Key & Peele (Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele) make their big-screen debut in Keanu, an action comedy revolving around a cute kitten sought by two criminal groups and our pair of nebbish protagonists. Defying stereotypes, Key & Peele take on personas closely associated with white actors (a stoner, a square family man) and sends them in the middle of a gang war. Blending comedy with suspense requires a deft touch, and one of Keanu’s most distinctive traits is that it’s shot like a thriller (with shadows, depth-of-field, slow-motion action sequences) by director Peter Atencio despite a succession of visual gags and rapid-fire dialogue. The mix is not perfect: There are times, such as the end of the Anna Faris scene, where the film errs too much in one direction. But while the joke density is on the low side, Keanu delivers what it intended, and the result is a fair bit of entertainment. The cute kitten, obviously helps make everything better and funnier.