Get Out - 2017
Of all the films released in 2017, none balanced unchartered creativity with tremendous nuts and bolts execution as well as Get Out – a social commentary rich, psychological horror that somehow married standard horror elements to pitch black comedy with stunning results. Get Out is probably the film where I most strongly want to throw up my hands and say, “Forget about what I have to say. Just go see it.” This will likely end up atop many year end lists for best film, and it is so easy to see why.
I’m sure you’ve heard the ’67 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner come up in conversation with this movie a time or two. This is fair enough, for the parallels do exist – African-American man visiting white girlfriend’s liberal family, who exhibit faux signs of racial acceptance – but it simply takes that basic premise and blows it to smithereens.
In Jordan Peele’s hands, that dreaded first visit to your girlfriend’s parents becomes a truly horrific experience. Peele’s real gift is to sprinkle these light moments of humor amidst an atmosphere that constantly makes us feel uncomfortable and apprehensive. We’re not sure what exactly is wrong here, though we begin to have our suspicions as the family and upstate locale begin to come into focus. Everyone seems so nice and accepting, but all the caretakers of the estate and helpers are black, and aren’t their actions just a bit too robotic?
What begins like a re-hash of Sydney Poitier in the home of Hepburn and Tracy becomes almost Lynchian in its mind paranoia, once the mother’s hynoptism becomes involved (Oops!…minor spoiler alert. Sorry!) Or maybe it’s Hitchcockian tension. Or maybe the bio-horror elements of the third act are more Cronenberg-ian? Or maybe…see that’s the point! We’re talking about a film which is one part comedy about “meeting the parents” and comparing it with some of the greatest horror auteurs of all time! All this AND he is able to seamlessly insert a repeated social critique – Hey, white liberals can be racist too. This is the rare air of Peele’s genius in Get Out. He has made a cultural artifact deeply of the moment in his first directorial outing. That just doesn’t happen.
Daniel Kaluuya is masterful in the lead role, the other actors are terrific (Catherine Keener is especially unnerving in her role as the shrink). Peele builds his masterpiece to nearly unbearable discomfort and then grants us one of the more satisfying resolves in a long time. I dare you not to leave the finale shaken.
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