When Jordan Peele first described Get Out, his pitch was: "So here's a movie that's never going to get made."
Thank the movie gods it was. The thriller-comedy that premiered as a surprise midnight show at Sundance Film Festival is a freaky, entertaining ride that calls out post-racial delusions. Don't like horror movies? See this anyway.
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Daniel Kaluuya shines as Chris, a black photographer from New York City who visits his white girlfriend's upper-class family for the first time. He's apprehensive as Rose (Allison Williams) hasn't told her parents he was black, but she charms him into believing it will all be OK. Besides, she reassures him, her dad would have voted for Obama for a third term if he could!
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But nothing is as it seems in the picturesque upstate town where Rose's family lives. All her parents' friends are so cordial it's creepy. It's as if they haven't seen a black person who hasn't worked for them before, Chris tells Rose. This is where Peele's love for The Stepford Wives, the 1975 film and 2004 reboot about submissive women in a rich suburb, blossoms. Chris' interactions turn from awkward to disturbing. Something's not right with Rose's family, and Chris knows it, he just figures it out too late. "One of my favorite movies is The Stepford Wives and the way it deals with social issues about gender," Peele (Key & Peele, Keanu) said during a Q&A after the premiere. He wanted to use horror to explore a similar message about racism that stretched beyond the South. With Get Out, the first-time director delivers just that: searing commentary on a wannabe post-racial society that's anything but.
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"All black people know: No, there's racism. I experience it on an everyday basis," Peele said. "This movie was meant to reveal there's this monster of racism lurking underneath."
Kaluuya plays stunned like a pro (see: his heartbreaking Black Mirror episode "15 Million Merits") and Lil Rel Howery (The Carmichael Show) as his best friend who works for the TSA provides superb comedic relief. (Peele has a thing for teasing the TSA.)
"Horror and comedy are very linked for me. They're both about getting a physical reaction and pinpointing where that physical reaction is," Peele said. "A really, truly scary scene can get everyone to laugh."
That double-punch happens a lot in Get Out, which comes out Feb. 24. Be prepared for both cackles and screams.
