The new movie “Us” directed by Jordan Peele could be seen as a masterpiece of “odd” suspense that is drowned in deep symbolism of what is happening to the American culture in the present time. As it is explained by the description of Wikipedia, the movie Us is the story of: “Adelaide Wilson, a woman who returns to the beachfront home where she grew up as a child. Haunted by a traumatic experience from the past, Adelaide grows increasingly concerned that something bad is going to happen. Her worst fears soon become a reality when four masked strangers descend upon the house, forcing the Wilsons into a fight for survival. When the masks come off, the family is horrified to learn that each attacker takes the appearance of one of them”.

As soon as we can read these lines, we are hooked up on a suspense story that doesn’t reflect absolutely anything about politics, religion or racism. I personally love suspense movies that are “well done” and not “medium rare”, those that unfold things slowly, paying attention to details and that makes you crave for the end of the movie to feel some sort of relief from so much suspense. Well, the movie “Us” is this and more, because of the intense play of fear and unconscious hidden elements that are revealed to the audience, making it a “strange” or “odd” movie that sometimes doesn’t seem to make much sense, such as life itself. This movie can be very upsetting for people that enjoys an easy story with a clear development and end, so if you feel that you can stand the ambiguity of the story, this might be a good movie for you!

I have checked some of the analysis of this movie, and I do have to agree with the fact that the title “Us” is much more a reflection of “US” as the United States, something that can be deeply appreciated on the film. The movie initially takes you back to the 80’s, to Adelaide’s childhood. She decides to stay away from her parents for a couple of minutes and ends up going into an attraction of the amusement park where it reads something like “to find yourself”. I have been trying to google the image of the attraction but I can’t find it. It has a Native American character on the entrance, and it looks very dark and mysterious inside. Indeed, Adelaide finds herself in this cave, but why is this a scary situation to the point of feeling terrorized? Perhaps because Adelaide has witness the shadow of her own past, the one that she is not aware of until that point, the point where she learns that there is a dark past in her history as an African American that is haunting her.

After this, Adelaide could not talk, developing PTSD after this experience. If any African American could find themselves one day back in the past, they would come back on the same state, or even worse than Adelaide’s conditions. After this, the movie jumps to the present time. Adelaide got married and had two children. They are spending some nice time of vacations on the beach, but Adelaide doesn’t want to go to the beach, to the same amusement park where she experienced the trauma that caused her to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but she still decides to do it for her family. She was feeling deeply paranoid on the beach, and she was afraid of her young boy to get lost in the same attraction that she did. The boy encountered a strange man on the beach standing with his arms open, a complete unexpected and weird element of the story. Adelaide’s son was able to walk nearby the same attraction where she had her trauma, but she found him on time to prevent him to get in. this can reflect the difficulties of African American parents when they have to reveal the story of their past to their children and how hard this can be for the parent and for the children.

The attraction does not show a Native American anymore and it has been switched for Merlin the Wizard. After what happened, Adelaide decides to go back home. When the family is back to the house, they started to experience the terrible phenomenon of being kidnapped by four strangers that are the creepiest version of themselves as a family. The creepy family version decides to break in to the house, and they want to possibly hurt and kill the original family. The only family member that can barely talk is the version of Adelaide, something that is explained at the end of the movie. The rest of characters cannot talk. When the family starts to run away from their cloned creepy family, they end up separating with their own version. We can ask ourselves why they are carrying with them a pair of scissors to kill?….what does this mean? Scissors main purpose is to cut, or “divide”. This can be a reflection of how the past is coming to haunt us (Racism) as a dark version of ourselves that will kill society by dividing it. The family is reunited one more time, and they decided to run for help to their white or Caucasian neighbors. Before this happens, the family has been killed by their own creepy versions and now the only survivors are the mean versions, the shadows of the racist past of the American history.

One of the meanings why the cloned creepy versions of everyone cannot talk could be the symbolism of how hard it is to talk about the racial history in the United States, and how everything should be kept quiet to avoid conflicts. Adelaide’s family had to kill the creepy family to survive, and they learned by watching the news that what is happening to them is happening to everyone. One main important thing is that is seems that you cannot kill the creepy characters. Why can this be possible? Perhaps because there is no way to escape from history, and history never dies. When we see the interaction between Adelaide and the replacement of her Caucasian friend as a creepy entity, we appreciate that she doesn’t kill her, she simply put handcuffs on her so she wont escape. This can be an underlying symbol of slavery.

When the family is trying to escape themselves from their own evil versions, the evil version of Adelaide takes her son, and she is faced to go back again to the cave of her past to look for the son that she lost. When she finally gets into that creepy place, she founds herself with weird people on the time of the 80’s that are not talking and they act in a “zombie mode”, perhaps reflecting how history is preserved in the collective unconscious of our memory. Adelaide looks for her creepy version walking in a strange white tunnel that is full of bunnies that have been released and are free. We can notice how at the beginning of the movie the bunnies are caged in a classroom. This can be a symbol of how education is creating naïve people that might be blind to the horrors of the American History back at the time, an even when they are free, they remain being naïve.

When Adelaide finds her creepy version, they are in a classroom. They fight for a long time, to finally discover that Adelaide is the actual copy of herself, and the true Adelaide is the actual creepy version that stayed inside of the main attraction park. This is a very confusing moment, where it is possible to think that the real Adelaide stayed buried in the past, and the past started to eat her own voice and freedom, meanwhile the other Adelaide was enjoying of living in the future time, without the horrors of the inclement history of America. When Adelaide achieves to leave and go back to her family, her son realizes that Adelaide is not herself, it was always the other version of herself…(Spoiler alert).

On the final scenes, we can observe how all of those creepy versions of humans are gathering in a line, grabbing each other by the hand, almost creating a wall. The past and the racism are back, and they are united forming a wall to set up limits to something that we were never saw on the film. This can be an actual representation of the wall that president Trump wants to build. Everyone is united as the past version of themselves to create this wall, and each of them are holding scissors on their hands, as if cutting or dividing the country. This is an interesting element where it is showed that these evil characters are united by dividing. The streets are crowded with dead people that has been replaced by the Racist past version of themselves. At some part of the movie when the family is making plans to escape, Adelaide wants to go to Mexico to run away, but her husband doesn’t want to because they are more safe in the United States because the have everything they need, such as water and electricity, something that Adelaide replies: Are you sure that are we much safe here? Another reflection of the political climate that we are experiencing in the present time. Another analogy to why are they dressed in red and they all have gloves in their right hand and wearing sandals can be tricky. The red color could be associated with the republican party, and the glove in the right hand and the sandals can be a symbol of the church and how oppressive was in the past against minorities. This movie is interesting, spooky and deeply charged with meaningful symbols, and I invite you to go and watch it!

Toscana Navas