Jordan Peele’s debut feature film Get Out was a film that I originally wasn’t going to review. I liked the movie well enough, but it wasn’t one that I totally felt comfortable writing about. I only do so now because it will likely be nominated for Best Picture and could get as many as 10 nominations. This is kind of crazy for a movie released in February. It certainly isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Its Academy Award nominations, 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and $175+ million in box office revenue off a $5 million budget confirm that this is one of the most surprising and successful movies of all time. It may be THE most successful horror movie of all time if you measure it by those four factors alone. It’s a movie that keeps you engaged and entertained from its very first scene (think a toned and shorter version of the first scene in Scream), powers its way through a unique plot that you’ve never seen on film before, and keeps you on the edge of your seat through its bold and unpredictable final act. It’s not only a great time at the movies that will keep you guessing until the very end. It takes on some underlying racial tones and tensions of the day that makes it seem like comedian Peele (Key and Peele) has been doing this his whole life. But this is is his first real dabble with anything outside of comedy, his first attempt at writing something for the big screen, and his first attempt at directing. He nailed each of these with pure precession. He will undoubtedly receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. There will be other nominations too, and it appears that Best Picture will be one of those. It will be much deserved in a year that will be forgotten about for the most part when it comes to movies. That is outside of little, unsuspecting movies such as this.

Get Out isn’t a horror film in the same way that Nightmare on Elm Street or Jaws are horror films. In fact, outside of maybe two or three scenes, you probably won’t be doing any jumping out of your seat at all. But it definitely belongs in the horror category. It’s more than just a suspense/thriller movie. And while it does have some comic relief in the form of a TSA agent named Rod (LilRel Howery – television’s The Carmichael Show), it goes long periods of time where there are no jokes. It’s a film that is hard to categorize and also one that breaks some barriers. It absolutely belongs in the discussion for Best Picture of 2017. There is no rhyme or reason to the movies that will likely be nominated this year outside of the fact that many of these films have been made on the cheap. Many of them will revolve around lead characters who are seen as or who feel like they are outsiders (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, I, Tonya, The Shape of Water, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird). It’s interesting if any of these films will be able to beat out movies like The Post, Darkest Hour, or Dunkirk, movies that didn’t have limited budgets and weren’t about outsiders.

Get Out revolves around a boyfriend, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya – Sicario, Kick-Ass 2), and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams – HBO’s Girls), preparing to go home to meet her parents. Chris is black, and Rose is white. They’ve been dating for a few months, and it becomes time to meet her parents. He asks if she’s told them that he’s black. She says that she hasn’t but blows it off as no big deal, going as far as to say that her father would have voted for Obama for a third time if he could. Be he is still cautious. He represents society in that a black man meeting his white girlfriend’s parents IS a big deal…no matter what the circumstance. But Rose assures him that, even though he is the first black boyfriend she’s had, that both her parents will be cool with it. What they will be less cool with, as she informs, is his cigarette smoking habit.

This sets up a nice little premise, even if we don’t know exactly where it’s going. The couple is going to a secluded plantation that is hours away from where they live. Chris will know no one except for Rose. The only ones who know that they will even be gone for the long weekend are Chris’s friend Rod. But Rose’s parents seem friendly enough. Her father, Dean (Bradley Whitford – Saving Mr. Banks, Other People), is a highly successful neurosurgeon. He is jovial and is very much interested in getting to know Chris better. And, of course, he does mention that he would have voted for Obama for a third term if he could have. His wife, Missy (Catherine Keener – Capote, Being John Malkovich), is a hypnotherapist who offers to cure Chris of his smoking habit. Her loose cannon of a brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Contraband) is the final member of the family.

The Armitage’s also have two onsite black helpers. Walter (Marcus Henderson – Whiplash, Woodlawn) the groundskeeper, and Georgina (Betty Gabriel – The Purge: Election Year) the maid. Dean acknowledges that it looks bad, two wealthy white people having two helpers who are black, but he hired them to take care of his parents, and Dean would have felt bad letting them go. There’s definitely something off about both Walter and Georgina. They have a definite stiff Stepford artificial politeness about them. They also both speak using dated vernacular. If it appears like maybe they are brainwashed, then, well, you might be right. That is certainly what Peele wants you to believe. Or at least he wants you to believe that something isn’t right on this vast mass of secluded land isn’t quite right. And he’s right.

There is much more to this movie than what I’ve mentioned. Peele packed this project with layer after layer of subliminal messages, some of which you’ll pick up on your first watch and some which you won’t notice until you watch the film again after they are explained to you. At its surface, this film is essentially about that unsettling feeling when you know you don’t belong somewhere. It’s that feeling when you know you’re unwanted. Or even that feeling when you feel like you are wanted too much, like, “why are all these people nice to me. What’s in it for them?” Peele infuses the age-old genre foundation of knowing something is wrong behind the closed doors around you with a racial, satirical edge. But there is even more to what he is saying.  To read some really great and deep spoilers, check out this article. I am not keen enough to pick up on everything, and even trying to write about the stuff I did notice would be difficult for me to do. So instead, I’ll say that what Peele created was the work of a master, someone who has been at his craft much longer than this first-time director. Even some of the scenes designed to make you laugh are much more poignant than how they appear.

Plot 9/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 9.5/10
91.5%