This shyt instantly popped in my head when the ending happened. I know “Hands Across America” inspired it. But how similar the video is to the ending on top of the lyrics MJ is singing with R. Kelly’s words...
Makes it a tad bit
Mike ain’t dead
“US” (by Jordan Peele) Official Thread
- Thread starter Dominic Brehetto
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Mike ain’t dead
Eh...I disagree. Watching the prestige the first time I didn't know what the twist was. And in Get Out I didn't know what to think of the white girlfriend. I didn't assume she was in on the fukkery but I wasn't shocked when she was. You are assuming that I am judging this off the twist. Not the case at all. I'm judging it off the story. It just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Yes a second watch will have me looking at her differently but I don't see a ton of situations like that where my perspective will change because I know the ending.
Warning, this review is long. First it's a breakdown and explanation of all the film's important aspects, and then I critique it.
I thought I was going to have a hard time following the symbolisms, imagery, and more to understand the film but it was pretty straight forward. Sure, it was obvious at times but I think they were executed well.
First, the very beginning talks about hundreds and thousands of miles of tunnels, some that serve unknown purposes. That's our first "hint" but really, Peele is telling us right away that these tunnels are used for secret government projects, ie the clones to control people. This is somewhat supported and foreshadowed by the daughter talking about the conspiracy theory that "the government puts fluoride in our water to control our minds...oh that's right, I forgot, no one cares about the world ending"
Next, the behavior of our MC which I'll call Ade (pre Red) because I don't feel like dealing with my phone's autocorrect on that. First, Ade is watching a series of TV commercials which she barely reacts to. It could be a hint at mindless TV rotting our brains or just a testament to Ade's personality. I feel like she's an unhappy child because she's in an unhappy environment. Her parents love her but are clearly on the brink of separation. She pays close attention to their behavior and notices the lack of love between the two. I think that she may feel a bit bad for her dad who is somewhat lousy but does what he thinks is best for her. Her mother is tired of his shyt and can barely tolerate him.
According to "Red", clones (shadows) are supposed to be used to control people on the surface, but this clearly isn't always the case, nor has it been. So we're not sure if the clones were still an experiment or an actual imperfect and incomplete project. The latter could be the case because Red mentioned that the people who created copies couldn't grasp the idea of two separate souls instead of sharing one, and constantly working in the environment of shadows drove them insane, which would explain why the clones were able to leave the tunnels and do what they wanted under no authority (rabbits being out of their cages is another indicator).
Red mentioned that it was God that brought the two together, because one does not simply meet their doppelganger. It has to be a coincidence that it happens.The whole purpose, or rather, the way the world is set up is that the shadows live in a parallel life of their original, replicating their lives in a fashion either intended by the government or by the original's free will.
With that being said, shadows do not have free will, or rather they are not as free as they'd like, because they are shadows created to replicate their copies. The lightening and the escalator are two essential factors that draw both OG Ade and shadow Ade to the same location. It's a coincidence like the frisbee perfectly landing on the same sized circle or noticing the time at 11:11. Things have to line up in order to meet. Shadow Ade would have not gone up the escalator had OG Ade not decided to, and this is left a bit abstract because shadow Ade, who maliciously switched out with OG, told her husband that she didn't know why she decided to wander off, but that's when we didn't know that she was speaking about wandering off from the tunnels as a shadow. This could either be a hint that shadows are aimlessly living the life of their originals, reinforcing the theory that shadows have no free will, or shadow Ade was just omitting the truth because she's a fukking liar like that.
Next, I'd like to talk about [shadow] Ade's fear of OG. She doesn't want to go to the beach, she's clearly traumatized and the movie likes to lead us to believe it's because of her going missing as a child. In reality, Ade knows she's a ain't shyt bytch who left behind a person who had lived on the surface. She knows that when things line up perfectly, coincidences, her doppelganger is likely to show up under the same circumstances or similar circumstances from when they were little. This is why she tells her husband that she's always felt she'd come back for her. Ade knows that OG has every right to be mad. And boy is she
Ade already knows the deal from the moment the shadows arrive. This is why she tries to tell her husband to STFU when talking to the OG, Red, because Ade knows this woman is out to seek vengeance, they just don't know in what manner. Ade cuffs herself to the table because this is exactly what she did to Red.
I think it's safe to leave out explaining why Red's voice sounds the way it does and why she's the only "shadow" capable of speaking.
Moving on, Red's mannerisms are that of someone who is trying to get back control, from the way she walks, moves and remains calm while her shadow family are being mollywhopped.
The scissors are pretty straightforward, cut the ties that bind you. In this case, the clones are killing their originals because their lives had been controlled by them. Also the double symbolism mentioned in a tweet about two of the same on opposite sides created to divide or some shyt like that.
Caged rabbits represent experiments and mankind's ability and almost obsession to clone. Cloning is a capability getting closer and closer to success. In the introduction the shot focuses on the bunny in the center which begins to behave oddly the more you look at it. During Red's monolog about souls not being able to be replicated, it pans to the caged rabbit we saw in the beginning, indicating that this rabbit was a clone and it was soulless. It would make sense that rabbits are cloned as well in order to sustain food provisions for all the shadows. This is the ONLY thing they ate their entire lives.
On second thought I'll finish this review later. I'm tired af.
TBC...
Excellent review so far. I haven't read every post in this thread but one I have yet to see mentioned as a clue to the twist is
The fact that Elizabeth Moss' clone won't cut Ade. It's as if she wants to but she can't do it. That is when I knew for sure.
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I think the white fam's shadows/tethers murking them so fast was to flip the traditional horror movie trope of black people always dying first in them. I also was thinking that maybe the white family did more shyt in their lives that brought more raw pain to their tethers (for example the wife mentions getting some work done on her face)... and from RED's dialogue in an earlier scene they basically felt all that pain without any modern medicine, IDK.
I was thinking the same thing about the table, the film went for a HR with the reveal and the overall arc of the theme behind it, but everything leading up to it just wasn't as tightly written as I was expecting. This was def a horror movie with the amount of dumb shyt that the characters were doing to encourage fukkery for viewers, but the film didn't really put me in a tense state, wasn't scary at all. This is one of those movies where people's theories will carry the discussion for it, but execution wise it left some things to be desired for me.
And the twist was predictable. No lie, my wife called it out loud right after the opening credits, and I was thinking it just off how they edited that scene before it cut away. So when it was revealed at the end we were like
I think the white fam's shadows/tethers murking them so fast was to flip the traditional horror movie trope of black people always dying first in them. I also was thinking that maybe the white family did more shyt in their lives that brought more raw pain to their tethers (for example the wife mentions getting some work done on her face)... and from RED's dialogue in an earlier scene they basically felt all that pain without any modern medicine, IDK.
I was thinking the same thing about the table, the film went for a HR with the reveal and the overall arc of the theme behind it, but everything leading up to it just wasn't as tightly written as I was expecting. This was def a horror movie with the amount of dumb shyt that the characters were doing to encourage fukkery for viewers, but the film didn't really put me in a tense state, wasn't scary at all. This is one of those movies where people's theories will carry the discussion for it, but execution wise it left some things to be desired for me.
And the twist was predictable. No lie, my wife called it out loud right after the opening credits, and I was thinking it just off how they edited that scene before it cut away. So when it was revealed at the end we were like
Great mentioning of the plastic surgery.... it explains her tether began to cut herself
The twist and reveal in US wasn't executed nearly as well as it was in The Prestige breh. If it was, I'd be raving about this film, because few movies can pull it off as precisely as Nolan did with The Prestige.
Honestly, I think a better approach to ending the film would have been if he took an Inception approach where he left it up to the viewer's to determine if the tether survived or not. Remember how with Inception people were going back and forth whether or not the last scene was a dream or not with the top spinning going in to the closing credits.
I just thought of something so the homeless Jeremiah 1:11 guy that was seen dead and his tethered version that Jason seen on the beach standing pretty much explains that they were instructed to kill their original selves and get into their reserved spot for their Hands Across America. For those, most of you I suspect weren't even born in 1986, Hands Across America was a fund raiser to help the homeless and eradicate poverty. Each person who was participating was supposed to make a donation and they'll have a reserved spot where they supposed to be at. So, basically, the tethered were doing the same thing, their donation is to kill their OG selves and then go to their assigned positions.
There's certain twists... even before movies are out that you'll can figure out. I mean people when they fist call the TRAILER was calling it. To me, the movie isn't about the TWIST nor should it be. The twist is to get you to see the film ONE WAY and then go back to see it from a completely different perspective. I am SURE you wasn't looking at the entire movie from the perspective of
her being a tethered
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
gonna need the final answer to this from the cast/peele because both sides are making good cases
That theory doesn't make sense. If the son with burns on his face was RED's real son why would she let him die in the flames like that?
She was protecting her kids at all costs and going to great lengths to ensure the tethered family/kids were dead.
I disagree.
The storytelling explains everything about what happened to her, so not only were my suspicions confirmed by the end of the movie. A rewatch of the movie isn't going to make me reconsider a conclusion that I already made upon my first viewing. With The Prestige, or with something like Shutter Island, I had no suspicions of the twists at the end, so when they hit me, I was on some...
type shyt.Then going back and watching the trailers even, let alone the movie gives me a different perspective that you're speaking on.
With this film... I was already thinking in my head, that her character COULD be a tether from how they cut away from her child self in the opening scene. I believe a more ambiguous approach to the storytelling would have been a lot more intriguing, but in order to leave things ambiguous like I'm suggesting, everything else would have to be explained to where people could make valid conclusions based on what was presented in the film.
Peele probably didn't confidently feel that the general audience would have appreciated story ending without a definite answer so he spoon fed us what went down when she was a lil kid.
Just think of it as some alternate parallel universe/world type shyt. Think of the 'others' as our shadows... honestly, I have no fukking clue
DosCadenaz
Superstar
Where did the clone get burned? I don't remember. I know on his face but how. I'm wonder where they had fire down there.
DosCadenaz
Superstar
Truth. Me n my wife took the look at the end he gave to her as him knowing who she is now. Its unsettling when he threw his mask on tho that could mean anythingThat theory doesn't make sense. If the son with burns on his face was RED's real son why would she let him die in the flames like that?
She was protecting her kids at all costs and going to great lengths to ensure the tethered family/kids were dead.
mask on fukk it mask off