I am going to be doing a deep dive (but by no means definitive) here which will likely only be valuable for people familiar with the film.
Jordan Peele's Us has rapidly become one of my favorite movies I've seen in recent memory. I'm convinced that critics who have griped about it being messy and simply refusing to appropriately engage with its heady themes. It not a movie to just be enjoyed and appreciated once in one sitting.
Like The Shining, which believe is its closest cinematic corollary, it raises a lot of narrative questions, some of which may simply be plot holes or anachronisms or they could be yet another thematic flight of fancy from Peele, who has proven to be one of the most exciting filmmakers working today.
I loved this movie so much I immediately wanted to see it again, which I did today after catching it on opening day this past Friday. Once I got past the initial jump scares and bravura shots during my first viewing, the second time around I was able to really delve into the movie's mysteries.
So here are a few burning questions/thoughts I have...
How did the 'tethered' pull off their grand scheme - In a pivotal scene during the film's denouement, Lupita Nyong'o's hoarse-voiced doppelganger Red meticulously describes how her kind coordinated the violent uprising which is the driving force behind the film. But it's still unclear to me how they executed their escape from the abandoned tunnels and passageways throughout the world they inhabit. Was it simply Red's actualization that they didn't have to be tethered anymore that set everything in motion? Also, a less crucial detail -- but is the single glove an homage to Michael Jackson?
Is there deeper meaning to the scissors and rabbits - There is plenty of symbolism (not to mention) numerology in this movie. But two of the biggest remain mercurial to me: the scissors and rabbits. I know the scissors were literally used by Red to cut her little paper dolls, but is there anything more there? Why are scissors the weapon of choice.
Also, I get that the tethered survive on a diet of raw rabbits, but is there any other symbolic significance? And what about the color red -- it's sprinkled prominently throughout this movie (and happens to be my favorite color) and clearly with purpose.
Besides the tethered's costume of choice -- Lupita is munching on strawberries early on, and the child version of her is first seen with a giant candy apple. I know it all means 'something' -- but what it means is unclear to me
What is up with the Tim Heidecker/Elizabeth Moss tethereds? - So they immediately kill their above ground doubles, and brutally I might add, but when Lupita and family show up seeking safe harbor they are almost playful. Heidecker's pursuit of Winston Duke is coming at first, while their teen girls instantly become ravenous killers. And strangest of all is Moss, who seems like she wants to kill Lupita but can't.
My theory is she knows that this is Red's double and may be under orders to leave her alive so Red can revel in her death, but this is never made fully clear. And sidebar: Moss is brilliant in what could have been a throwaway part.
Finally, how much personality transference is there? - The movie suggests pretty overtly that some of the tethered take on elements of the personalities of the people they're linked to. What's unclear is how far that 'bond' goes? For instance, Winston Duke's double is much dumber than he is, while his kids' doubles are closer to the real thing, while Heidecker and Moss's are almost direct parodies of themselves. It's all very curious to me.
I think this film is unfairly getting labeled as disappointing, frustrating and confusing following the more mainstream Get Out. But you could make the case that this film explores what would happen if the Sunken Place people managed to somehow escape their prison of the mind and took revenge out on the bodies that entrapped them. Makes plenty of sense to me.
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