Get Out - directed by Jordan Peele
This movie arrives already a smash hit in its home country the United States.
It is the first debut film from a black director to make over $100,000,000 - a strange record and one that I thought was no longer a criteria but apparently is!
The director in question is Jordan Peele - most famous (prior to this film at least) as one half of the comedy duo Key & Peele (Keegan-Michael Key of course being the other half)
He deserves credit for his achievement with his first film not as a black filmmaker but as a plain damned good one.
"Get Out" is a tough beast to put a label on.
It is part horror film, part comedy, part social satire and part science fiction.
It tells the story of a young woman named Rose (Allison Williams) takes her boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her wealthy parents.
Not an unusual event and in this day and age neither is the fact that she is white and he is black.
She tells him that she hasn't told her parents that he is black which causes him some concern.
When they arrive at the estate Rose's parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) go out of their way to reassure Chris that they are okay with the relationship.
Several times Whitford's Dean claims that he would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have!
It is cringe inducing sequence where the audience is placed right there alongside Chris as the feeling of 'what the hell?!' grows.
Awkward social interaction in pressure situations soon gives way to out and out weirdness as Chris meets the hired help - a gardener and a housekeeper - both black.
Something is not quite right with them.
They seem distant and almost in a trance.
It marks the point where the film largely leaves it's comedy element behind and dives full on into the others.
There is a lot of mystery to the film.
We are shown things and told things by characters that constantly leave us wondering what the hell is going on and why are people behaving this way.
The cast is terrific with Whitford and Keener so familiar from projects like "The West Wing", "Cabin In the Woods", "Capote" and "The 40-Year Old Virgin" particularly effective as the way too keen to reassure parents.
It all builds and builds until everything is revealed and if the reveal isn't as 'holy shit!' amazing as the lead up may have been suggesting the fact that we have spent so much time getting to know Chris makes up for it.
"Get Out" is a film that relies heavily on the mystery of its central plot and the fun in watching it play out but it isn't the only trick that it has up its sleeve.
The comedy element is unsurprisingly strong given that Jordan Peele is at the helm.
Chris has a friend named Rod (Lil Rel Howery) who works for the TSA and is in constant phone contact with Chris making funny comments.
There is a lot of humour derived from the awful tendency of Rose's parents to go way too far in making sure that Chris knows that they like black people.
But what impressed me most about Peele as director was his ability to frame his shots and his patience in building the mystery and the tension.
There is an opening scene in which a man walking down a night time street is abducted and it contains a terrific tracking shot that is as good as any tension building equivalent in any horror film I've seen in the last five years.
This is a film that is best seen before anyone spoils anything for you.
The fun is in watching the mysteries that it contains slowly revealed.
The performances are spot on, the script super effective at subtly laying on the social satire but Peele's direction is the real star.
This is a great debut for sure and the assuredness and confidence on display from the man in the big chair would be impressive were it from a seasoned director.
I would like to have a second look at this film to see how many clues there are in along the way that point to what is coming.
It isn't at all hard to see how this small budget film trawled in the bucks - it is a lot of fun.
RATING: 82 / 100
CONCLUSION: A brilliant debut for Peele. Equal parts social satire, comedy and horror it brings to mind genre flicks like "Society", "They Live" and "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" but remains uniquely effective in its own right.
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephen Root, Lil Rel Howery, Ashley LeConte Campbell, John Wilmot
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Music Score by: Michael Abels
Cinematography: Toby Oliver
Edited by: Gregory Plotkin
Running Time: 104 minutes
Language: English
Rated: R16 -Violence, profanity
Running Time: 104 minutes
Language: English
Rated: R16 -Violence, profanity
This movie arrives already a smash hit in its home country the United States.
It is the first debut film from a black director to make over $100,000,000 - a strange record and one that I thought was no longer a criteria but apparently is!
The director in question is Jordan Peele - most famous (prior to this film at least) as one half of the comedy duo Key & Peele (Keegan-Michael Key of course being the other half)
He deserves credit for his achievement with his first film not as a black filmmaker but as a plain damned good one.
"Get Out" is a tough beast to put a label on.
It is part horror film, part comedy, part social satire and part science fiction.
It tells the story of a young woman named Rose (Allison Williams) takes her boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her wealthy parents.
Not an unusual event and in this day and age neither is the fact that she is white and he is black.
She tells him that she hasn't told her parents that he is black which causes him some concern.
When they arrive at the estate Rose's parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) go out of their way to reassure Chris that they are okay with the relationship.
Several times Whitford's Dean claims that he would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have!
It is cringe inducing sequence where the audience is placed right there alongside Chris as the feeling of 'what the hell?!' grows.
Awkward social interaction in pressure situations soon gives way to out and out weirdness as Chris meets the hired help - a gardener and a housekeeper - both black.
Something is not quite right with them.
They seem distant and almost in a trance.
There is a lot of mystery to the film.
We are shown things and told things by characters that constantly leave us wondering what the hell is going on and why are people behaving this way.
The cast is terrific with Whitford and Keener so familiar from projects like "The West Wing", "Cabin In the Woods", "Capote" and "The 40-Year Old Virgin" particularly effective as the way too keen to reassure parents.
It all builds and builds until everything is revealed and if the reveal isn't as 'holy shit!' amazing as the lead up may have been suggesting the fact that we have spent so much time getting to know Chris makes up for it.
"Get Out" is a film that relies heavily on the mystery of its central plot and the fun in watching it play out but it isn't the only trick that it has up its sleeve.
The comedy element is unsurprisingly strong given that Jordan Peele is at the helm.
Chris has a friend named Rod (Lil Rel Howery) who works for the TSA and is in constant phone contact with Chris making funny comments.
There is a lot of humour derived from the awful tendency of Rose's parents to go way too far in making sure that Chris knows that they like black people.
But what impressed me most about Peele as director was his ability to frame his shots and his patience in building the mystery and the tension.
There is an opening scene in which a man walking down a night time street is abducted and it contains a terrific tracking shot that is as good as any tension building equivalent in any horror film I've seen in the last five years.
The fun is in watching the mysteries that it contains slowly revealed.
The performances are spot on, the script super effective at subtly laying on the social satire but Peele's direction is the real star.
This is a great debut for sure and the assuredness and confidence on display from the man in the big chair would be impressive were it from a seasoned director.
I would like to have a second look at this film to see how many clues there are in along the way that point to what is coming.
It isn't at all hard to see how this small budget film trawled in the bucks - it is a lot of fun.
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