Nope (Super quick review)

Nope might be my favourite of Jordan Peele’s films so far.

Beware potential spoilers

I thought Get Out was good, but Us felt like it put the symbolism over everything including sense and engagement. Us just did not work for me.

Nope, however, felt more open to interpretation in its message.

Here’s what I got from it, there are things we cannot control, and even though we have our rituals, there is no way to control the chaos. The stiletto standing up felt totemic of that theme. It kinda reminded me of Grizzly Man in that respect.

Nope felt the most cinematic out of his three films so far, it used it’s location well and the images had a dynamic quality was missing from his previous two films.

What I liked about Nope

The acting throughout was good. There have been a few reviews I’ve read that said they found the main dude boring and the main gal annoying, I thought they complimented each other well. Also it was great to have Michale Wincott in a film, one of the best voices in cinema.

I appreciated how he handled the violence, too. It was grim without being gratuitous. How he handled, the mass abduction/people being consumed was fantastic by having a close-up of a face with shadows of people in the background, then cutting to a wide inside the creature/UFO. Also, people getting eaten, it looks like it was done with sheets and light, but it was the feeling it left you with and hearing people still screaming while getting digested was chilling.

There are also some fantastic visual conceits, like the sequence in the rain. The characters realise the thing is overhead when it stops raining. Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tubemen wasn’t as effective, but it was still a decent visual, reminded me of the barrels from Jaws.

It was great that the ending doesn’t muck around. The heroes win, they share a look, the end.

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