Get Out

Streaming: HBO
Warnings:
Graphic Violence
Racism
Rating: R
Note: Some Spoilers in this review

  Get Out is a horror film following a young African American man who discovers an alarming secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend for the first time. Written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele in his directional feature debut, this horror film explores new boundaries when discussing the concept of race and interracial dating. The film stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Lil Rey Howery, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Catherine Keener, and LaKeith Stanfield. Get Out premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017 and was released in the United States a month later by Universal Pictures. Get Out received critical acclaim praising the screenplay, acting performances, and the direction. Critics also appreciated Daniel Kaluuya for incorporating comedy and social themes into his role. The film was incredibly successful in the box office, with a budget of only $4.5 million, Get Out grossed $255.4 million in the box office worldwide. The acting is great, the choices the actors make for their performances developed interesting characters and for some of the characters, terrifying. The cinematography also added to the success of the film, there are jarring images that makes the audience feel uncomfortable and sometimes disgusted. The screenplay is an element to applaud, the film wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the creative thought process of Jordan Peele. With all of these elements in mind, Get Out is well deserving of all of the awards it was nominated for as well as the awards it received including an Academy award for Best Original Screenplay, an IGN Award for Best Horror Movie, and Best Picture from the African American Film Critics Association (to name a few). The total number of awards is 88 and the total number of nominations is 218.

            The screenplay for Get Out was the first step towards a masterpiece, Jordan Peele discusses in an interview his process of creating this story and how impactful it was for him. Peele wanted to include a theme that is relative to the prison industrial complex and in an interview with Vanity Fair he states that it was a “very emotional discovery” for him. He also states, “I remember having so much fun writing it, but at that moment when I figured out this weird esoteric, but also an emotionally brutal form of suffering to put the character through- I literally cried writing the scene.” This symbolism didn’t go unnoticed and there are plenty of themes included in the film that comment on the Black experience. Peele also made a point not to make the racists in the film overtly obvious like neo-Nazis or the “alt-right,” he purposefully made them middle-class liberals. Something that is highlighted perfectly in the film is how these same types of liberals can make life so hard and uncomfortable for Black people, even if its unintentional. The film exposes a liberal ignorance that was significantly prevalent during the Obama era, assuming that racism didn’t exist anymore because of the fact that the United States had a Black President. Get Out examines the liberal complacency with racism that still exists in the everyday lives of BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of color) individuals. The film also depicts a lack of attention to missing Black Americans when compared to missing white females, according to the FBI archives, although Black people only comprise 13 percent of America’s population, they are 34 percent of America’s missing people. This reality exists in result of racial and socioeconomic factors and yet white women receive more media coverage when it comes to missing people. (For those who do not know, “missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists and media commentators to refer to extensive media coverage especially in television of missing person cases involving young, white upper-middle-class women or girls” – Wikipedia) In addition to the theme of missing people, Peele wrote a subversion to the white savior trope that is often portrayed in various genres of cinema. The evil white character in the film is not a victim of indoctrination, hypnotism or Stockholm syndrome, they are simply evil. These themes in combination with each other creates a story that is unlike any other but also incredibly relative to the Black experience in the United States. Due to the success of Get Out, Jordan Peele became the first African American writer, producer and director to earn more than $100 million for his debut feature film. 

            The acting is a factor that makes the film as chilling as it is. Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington and Allison Williams as Rose Armitage developed completely plausible characters. Peele and Williams stated that “Rose behaved like a teenager as her emotional development was delayed.” Williams noticed that after some white audiences watched the film, they frequently misinterpreted the motivations of the evil characters and they’d assume that they didn’t mean to be harmful, or that their actions weren’t intentional. Williams in particular was cast to disorient audiences into trusting her. Daniel Kaluuya was cast based on his powerful performance in the Black Mirror episode, Fifteen Million Merits. According to IMDB, Kaluuya was given the lead role for nailing his audition. After doing about 5 takes of a key scene where the character Chris Washington needs to cry, Kaluuya was perfect and for each take, his tears came on cue every single time. Kaluuya’s performance is beyond masterful, he portrays his character as a good guy that everyone knows, someone who is a relatable “everyman.” To highlight a few nominations and awards, Kaluuya won the Outstanding Actor award from the Black Reel Awards, he won Best Actor for the African American Film Critics Association and was nominated for Best actor for an Academy Award. Get Out won Best Cast from the National Board Review and Best Ensemble from the Seattle Film Critics Society.

            Finally, the cinematography is an important element of this film because it adds to the shocking scenes and pushes the audience further out of their comfort zone. Cinematographer Toby Oliver, who is known for Happy Death Day, Insidious: The Last Key, and Dead to Me has worked on over forty films and has been active in the industry since 1994. The principal photography of Get Out lasted 23 days and was filmed in Fairhope, Alabama. Some critics likened the film to Alfred Hitchcock specifically North by Northwest because of its execution. One particular scene that is similar to Hitchcock is when Walter (played by Marcus Henderson) is running directly towards Chris and also the audience, the camera is directly facing Walter as he is running at full speed, this is a distressing shot to say the least. Decisions like this throughout the film is what makes it a great horror movie, the audience is shocked yet not to the point where they become disinterested. Toby Oliver and Jordan Peele make a wonderful team and hopefully they work together in the future.

            Get Out is an unforgettable horror film that incorporates so many elements of suffering that it becomes a plausible nightmare. After watching this film, it is evident that something similar to this is probably actually happening somewhere in the United States. Jordan Peele truly shows that he has talents beyond comedy and can create frightening films that are also thought-provoking. From the acting, the writing and the cinematography Get Out is one of the best horror films from this decade. If you wish to enjoy a cerebral horror film that makes you think, I highly recommend Get Out.