by Nathaniel R
Not sure if there's an audience out there for a return of our Hit Me With Your Best Shot series but Jordan Peele's horror smash Us would certainly be a worthy candidate for the treatment. Lately I've been obsessing over this particular image (above) in which Red (Lupita Nyong'o) has handcuffed Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) to her own coffee table. It's not just the slow upsetting crack of the glass, or Lupita's stunning dual performance...
It's not just the 'what happens now' narrative punch or those omnipresent terrifying scissors (which, spoiler alert, have yet to actually kill or draw blood at this point in the movie but you know they will). It's all of those things plus the lighting, framing, and the ingenuity and calibre of the visual effects. They're the best kind of effects, the kind that you don't even clock while they're happening but react to only as a juicy narrative or emotional moment. We're a long way from split screens for "twin" effects in the cinema!
How did they do that? It's Lupita x 3, being both literally and figuratively mirrored in the same frame.
In the end I don't think Us is Get Out's equal for a few narrative and thematic reasons. That said it's a pretty damn good time at the movies and really fun to read opinions about (and not just here though that's why we shared two reviews with you from Tony at SXSW & Chris when the movie hit theaters).
Ascending auteur Jordan Peele didn't actually bring that many of his team from his Get Out debut over into his sophomore effort but the new collaborators are doing stellar work. That's particularly true in the areas of visual effects, production design (Ruth De Jong, Emmy nominated recently for the revival of Twin Peaks), costume design (Kym Barrett, one of the most overdue designers out there in terms of Oscar - she's never been nominated despite iconic contributions to movies like Romeo + Juliet, The Matrix and now the red jumpsuits of Us), and cinematography (Mike Gioulakis, a relative new DP but he's already lensed It Follows, Split, Glass, and Us so he's definitely an artist to watch... particularly if he gets rich opportunities outside of the horror genre and also aces them.)
What image from Us are you still thinking about a week later?