Us (USA: Jordan Peele, 2019)

Films often ask performers to play multiple roles as something of a gimmick. It’s been done for comedic effect in something like “The Nutty Professor” or for philosophical examination in something like “The Double” or “Enemy.” No one has ever asked as much of a double performer as Jordan Peele asked of Lupita Nyong’o in “Us,” and the Oscar winner delivered one of the best performances of 2019 in return. As Adelaide’s worst fear comes to life and she witnesses the shadow version of her family sitting across the living room from her, the actress doesn’t just play good and evil – she goes much deeper than that. She sells both the depth behind the fear of who we presume is the “normal” Adelaide and the wounded monster who has been tied to her. For some reason, great acting has often become synonymous with either a great impersonation or a great couple of scenes. What’s most often ignored when we discuss acting is physicality. Watch what Nyong’o does with her body to both distinguish and tie the two versions of herself in “Us.” They are distinct and yet also mirrors of each other in so many ways. It’s the kind of performance one can break down scene by scene and appreciate with greater depth and nuance with each viewing. It’s not just a great 2019 performance, it’s an all-timer. (Brian Tallerico: December 23, 2019)

One of the central themes in Us is that we can do a good job collectively ignoring the ramifications of privilege. I think it’s the idea that what we feel like we deserve comes at the expense of someone else’s freedom or joy… The biggest disservice we can do as a faction with a collective privilege, like the United States, is to presume that we deserve it and that it isn’t luck that has us born where we’re born. For us to have our privilege someone suffers. - Jordan Peele on his film 'Us'

Us (USA: Jordan Peele, 2019: 116 mins)

Archer, Ina Diane. "Us." Film Comment (March 26, 2019)

Booker, M. Keith and Isra Daraiseh. "Lost in the Funhouse: Allegorical Horror and Cognitive Mapping in Jordan Peele’s Us." Comments on Culture (ND)

Brody, Richard. "Jordan Peele's Us is a Colossal Cinematic Achievement." The New Yorker (March 23, 2019)

Calman, Susan and Mike Muncer. " HOME INVASION Pt 35: Us (2019) & Parasite (2019)." The Evolution of Horror (2023)

Castillo, Monica. "Us." Roger Ebert (March 20, 2019)

Due, Tannarive. "Us." Switchblade Sisters #165 (December 31, 2020) ["Tananarive Due, the producer of the groundbreaking doc ‘Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror,’ joins April Wolfe to discuss Jordan Peele’s ‘Us.’"]

Enzo and Eve. "Wakanda Deferred." Hammer & Camera #16 (July 12, 2019) ["Enzo and Eve of the Marxist "propaganda circle" Unity & Struggle to discuss their article, "Black on Both Sides: Grappling with BLM in Movies", and to review the past year of Black cinema. Among the films discussed are Black Panther, Blackkklansman, Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting, and Us."]

Harrison, Sheri-Marie. "Us and Them." Commune (June 6, 2019) [On Jordan Peele's 2019 horror film Us.]

LeGuin, Ursula. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." (Short Story: 1973) [Similar themes]

Lyonhart, Jonathan D. "Peele’s Black, Extraterrestrial, Critique of Religion." Journal of Religion & Film (October 2023) ["While Jordan Peele’s films have always held their mysteries close to the chest, they eventually granted their viewers some climactic clarity. Get Out (2017) used an 1980s style orientation video to clear up its neuroscientific twist, while Us (2019) had Lupita Nyongo’s underworld twin narratively spell out the details of the plot. Yet Nope (2022) refuses to show its hand even after the game is over, never illuminating the connection between its opening scene and the broader film, nor a myriad of other questions. As such, critics complained that it stitched together two seemingly incongruent plots without explanation; one where a chimp attacks the crew of a successful Hollywood show, the other where an alien organism haunts a small ranch in the middle of nowhere. In this paper, I will argue that a theological interpretation of Nope helps explain some of these mysteries at its center, while revealing Peele’s underlying religious critique and its place within his broader oeuvre."]

McDonald, Soraya Nadia. "Jordan Peele’s Us has a message for those who can hear above the screams."  Andscape (March 22, 2019)

McMillan, Candice. "How Trump and #metoo Have Scared Us Into the New Decade." Chaz's Journal (March 10, 2020)

Narcisse, Evan. "Jordan Peele’s Us Goes Deeper and Darker Into America’s Collective Psyche." io9 (March 9, 2019)

Palis, Elena M. "The Brand of Peele."  Film Quarterly (December 12, 2023) ["Jordan Peele’s third feature film, Nope (2022), reenergized the already substantive circulation of “Peele” as auteur-star signifier. In their generic, political, and aesthetic coherence, Peele’s directorial features satisfy the classical auteur theorization of a knowable author and “authority.” Yet central to Peele’s signature films are resolute unpredictability, character shape-shifting, and narrative misdirection, epitomized by body snatchers in Get Out (2017), tethered doppelgängers in Us (2019), and aliens camouflaged by clouds in Nope. As an ironic manipulation of auteur knowability, Peele’s motif of deceptive, equivocal ontology requires a more complex understanding of Peele’s authorship, one that also takes into account Peele’s extrafilmic roles as producer, showrunner, and star persona."]

Robinson, Tasha. "Jordan Peele’s Us turns a political statement into unnerving horror." The Verge (March 22, 2019)

Yamato, Jen. "The ending of Us: Jordan Peele on who the real villains are." Los Angeles Times (March 22, 2019)