USA / Japan, 104 minutes
Director/writer: Jordan Peele
Photography: Toby Oliver
Music: Michael Abels, Childish Gambino
Editor: Gregory Plotkin
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, LaKeith Stanfield, Betty Gabriel, Marcus Henderson, Stephen Root, Lil Rel Howery
[spoilers] The making of Get Out spanned the transition from the Obama to the Trump era in the US, which affected Get Out directly in terms of the way it ended. The streaming version available via Amazon Prime includes an alternate ending with explanatory voiceover from director and writer Jordan Peele, turning to horror movies after a lifetime of comedy. This career shift may not be as radical as, say, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who transitioned from comedy into national wartime leader. But it’s pretty radical, especially given that Peele’s horror movies are not just there for the sensations—though they are generally quite good at sensations—but also as a forum to discuss and enlighten contemporary and ancient racial issues. Get Out is consciously “woke” before that term was coopted and distorted by rightwing dullards. Indeed, Peele chose the Childish Gambino song “Redbone” to play with the titles at the beginning of the movie in part because the song’s chorus urges us to “stay woke.”
Get Out is also funny, with a premise that is sitcom gold: Black boyfriend Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is being taken Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner style by his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) to meet her family in a distant, affluent New York suburb. Chris has his concerns about how they will take him as a Black man, but Rose tells him not to worry. They’re not racist. They would have voted for Obama for a third term if they could have, which her father Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford), a neurosurgeon, later confirms word for word. But once there we see Chris had good reason for concern. The white family is awkwardly welcoming but can’t help constantly revealing their unconscious racism, of which the Obama comment is a great example. But there are more disturbing undercurrents as well, more than Chris or any of us might have expected, such as Black servants who are hostile and zombie-like by turns. There’s often an uneasy sense of just how isolated this place is.
[spoilers] The making of Get Out spanned the transition from the Obama to the Trump era in the US, which affected Get Out directly in terms of the way it ended. The streaming version available via Amazon Prime includes an alternate ending with explanatory voiceover from director and writer Jordan Peele, turning to horror movies after a lifetime of comedy. This career shift may not be as radical as, say, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who transitioned from comedy into national wartime leader. But it’s pretty radical, especially given that Peele’s horror movies are not just there for the sensations—though they are generally quite good at sensations—but also as a forum to discuss and enlighten contemporary and ancient racial issues. Get Out is consciously “woke” before that term was coopted and distorted by rightwing dullards. Indeed, Peele chose the Childish Gambino song “Redbone” to play with the titles at the beginning of the movie in part because the song’s chorus urges us to “stay woke.”
Get Out is also funny, with a premise that is sitcom gold: Black boyfriend Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is being taken Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner style by his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) to meet her family in a distant, affluent New York suburb. Chris has his concerns about how they will take him as a Black man, but Rose tells him not to worry. They’re not racist. They would have voted for Obama for a third term if they could have, which her father Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford), a neurosurgeon, later confirms word for word. But once there we see Chris had good reason for concern. The white family is awkwardly welcoming but can’t help constantly revealing their unconscious racism, of which the Obama comment is a great example. But there are more disturbing undercurrents as well, more than Chris or any of us might have expected, such as Black servants who are hostile and zombie-like by turns. There’s often an uneasy sense of just how isolated this place is.
There are certain points in Get Out, which may fairly be considered flaws, where you just have to accept what is going on as presented. Perhaps the most obvious is the uncanny ability of Armitage matriarch Missy (Catherine Keener)—I love that “Missy”—to hypnotize people quickly and deeply, even against their will. That’s what happens when Chris can’t sleep the first night and steps outside for a cigarette. Missy strongly disapproves of smoking as unhealthy and her cover story for hypnotizing Chris is to help him quit smoking. Sure enough, the next day even the thought of smoking makes him want to vomit. But he also lost many hours from the night before, waking up in bed the next morning with little memory of what happened after the hypnosis session started.
What is perhaps most shocking and most funny too about Get Out is how blatantly it is about racial slavery. That’s what they’re doing at this outpost of civilization, the Armitages and all their neighbors—capturing Black people and taking control of them for purposes of some science fiction mind/brain transplantation. It’s pretty goofy, with stuff I remember seeing in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but get past that and you’re confronted with a foundational story of America and the New World, spelled out dryly, almost clinically.
Some incidental trauma has also been roped into this. Chris’s mother died in a hit and run auto accident when he was 11, and he blames himself for her death for waiting too long to report her missing. A turning point in the movie comes when he is escaping the house, accidentally hits the maid Georgina (Betty Gabriel, pictured above, who’s so good she nearly steals the show in a small part), and stops the car to get her.
The theme carries on, and here’s where the spoilers really start, when he leaves Rose bleeding out in the road to escape with his best friend Rod (Lil Rel Howery), who improbably comes to the rescue. This is the official ending, which I think of as the Trump era ending after hearing Peele’s explanations. In the Obama era ending, the originally intended ending, Chris finishes the job with Rose, choking her to death. The cops show up and he goes to prison. The enslavement ring is apparently left to continue. Peele says he changed the ending because Trump era times called for a heroic, upbeat ending. And it works—it’s almost perfectly satisfying, and resolves the trauma theme in arguably a better way.
Get Out is a great and highly enjoyable movie with a sharp and nifty rollicking script, lots of intrigue and surprises, and a terrific cast. The plot clunks in a few places but the cast is basically having a ball and that is infectious. Allison Williams is surprisingly good in a fairly demanding role, called on basically to fool us for most of the picture. Whitford is funny playing off his West Wing persona and Keener is the usual quirky presence we’ve come to know. Kaluuya carries a lot of the movie just with his shifting eyes, expressing irony, doubt, and bewilderment by turns. Betty Gabriel is amazing. Caleb Landry Jones as Rose’s brother Jeremy is suitably disturbing. LaKeith Stanfield gets a ferocious moment as one of the enslaved Black characters, who has a moment of clarity when he’s exposed to a camera flash. Get Out is still the best movie Peele has made at this stage of his career, but everything so far has been interesting and there’s no reason to think he can’t still outdo himself.
What is perhaps most shocking and most funny too about Get Out is how blatantly it is about racial slavery. That’s what they’re doing at this outpost of civilization, the Armitages and all their neighbors—capturing Black people and taking control of them for purposes of some science fiction mind/brain transplantation. It’s pretty goofy, with stuff I remember seeing in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but get past that and you’re confronted with a foundational story of America and the New World, spelled out dryly, almost clinically.
Some incidental trauma has also been roped into this. Chris’s mother died in a hit and run auto accident when he was 11, and he blames himself for her death for waiting too long to report her missing. A turning point in the movie comes when he is escaping the house, accidentally hits the maid Georgina (Betty Gabriel, pictured above, who’s so good she nearly steals the show in a small part), and stops the car to get her.
The theme carries on, and here’s where the spoilers really start, when he leaves Rose bleeding out in the road to escape with his best friend Rod (Lil Rel Howery), who improbably comes to the rescue. This is the official ending, which I think of as the Trump era ending after hearing Peele’s explanations. In the Obama era ending, the originally intended ending, Chris finishes the job with Rose, choking her to death. The cops show up and he goes to prison. The enslavement ring is apparently left to continue. Peele says he changed the ending because Trump era times called for a heroic, upbeat ending. And it works—it’s almost perfectly satisfying, and resolves the trauma theme in arguably a better way.
Get Out is a great and highly enjoyable movie with a sharp and nifty rollicking script, lots of intrigue and surprises, and a terrific cast. The plot clunks in a few places but the cast is basically having a ball and that is infectious. Allison Williams is surprisingly good in a fairly demanding role, called on basically to fool us for most of the picture. Whitford is funny playing off his West Wing persona and Keener is the usual quirky presence we’ve come to know. Kaluuya carries a lot of the movie just with his shifting eyes, expressing irony, doubt, and bewilderment by turns. Betty Gabriel is amazing. Caleb Landry Jones as Rose’s brother Jeremy is suitably disturbing. LaKeith Stanfield gets a ferocious moment as one of the enslaved Black characters, who has a moment of clarity when he’s exposed to a camera flash. Get Out is still the best movie Peele has made at this stage of his career, but everything so far has been interesting and there’s no reason to think he can’t still outdo himself.
I liked this first time but can see how it might gain resonance in the Orange Dump era. Need to see again.
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