by Jacob Beeson
Mild spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen the film yet.
Jordan Peele’s newest horror film comes packaged in a horror-thriller instead of his usual social horror. Nope marks his return to the big screen, his last film, Us (2019), was fairly successful and met some acclaim, while his debut feature, Get Out (2017), earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Daniel Kaluuya also returns to be the face of Peele’s film, forming a sort of De Niro/Scorsese type relationship that is as successful as the latter’s career’s together. Nope has been heavily secretive, as all Peele films have been, but has thus far promised a promising alien horror film. While this at first seems more akin to an M. Night Shyamalan film, Nope turns out to resemble more of Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Peele brings in a stacked cast along Academy Award winner Kaluuya, genre legend Keith David, Academy Award nominated Steven Yeun, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea, and the gravelliest voice in Hollywood, Michael Wincott.
As all Peele films have, Nope opens with a prologue that opens with a sitcom voiceover that eventually transitions into each camera position on the show capturing the recording for “Gordy” (the fictional sitcom). When a balloon accidentally pops on set, the trained chimpanzee on set snaps as the camera’s cut to black and we hear the chaos ensuing. Titles that resemble the text styling and lighting of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) take us through the credits and divide the film into each of its segments, named by each of the horses or characters in the film. When OJ (Otis Jr.) Haywood (Kaluuya) witnesses the grizzly death of his father Otis Haywood (David) as every day items begin falling from the sky, OJ inherits a ginormous legacy that he might not be ready for. Peele’s knack for disturbing images begin here and carry out in flashback sequences that echo the theme of profiting off trauma as well as other brilliantly staged abduction sequences. An immediately iconic image comes from a string of flags dangling from the middle of a cloud and are always emphasized or one-upped by his cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71158319/2541_TPI_0143.0.jpeg)
Hoytema established himself in the late 2000s with Let the Right In (2008), perfected his style in Her (2013), and cemented himself as the king of IMAX with Christopher Nolan. Nope being his first collaboration with Peele seems to only by capitalizing on his abilities and improving the visual flair that Peele has been developing. The two capture the enormous scale that the West California landscape encompasses, beautiful nighttime images that can be seen fairly easily, as well as the Spielbergian awe of the other. Image making also becomes a visual theme through the cinematographer character, Antlers Holst (Wincott), that OJ and his sister, Emerald (Palmer), hire to photograph the alien ship. The tech specialist, Angel (Perea), plays a role in image making and comedic relief and is the source of VR headsets that further reflect the theme established by OJ and Emerald’s great-great-great-grandfather being the unknown (in real life) jockey that appeared in Edward Muybridge’s (the grand-father of cinema) initial capturing of a moving image.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71160362/nopecover.0.jpg)
This idea isn’t inherently stated anywhere throughout the film thankfully, but is contradicted in the finale, which is one of this films incredibly few flaws. Going by Peele’s two previous films, it’s only right to see these themes through race. This is simultaneously built into the theme of trauma, image making, whether or not one should benefit from trauma, and the legacy that family and individual careers hold. OJ’s struggle with his father’s game-changing legacy as the only Black horse trainers in Hollywood influences his every decision on whether or not to leave the alien alone or to profit off of it. Every character has something to benefit from this alien, whether it be building upon a traumatic child-acting career incident and building a new theme park for Jupe (Yeun), capturing the impossible image for Holst, making the discovery of a lifetime for Angel, or Emerald simply making a quick buck to help save her father’s legacy and fund her own career. Their goals are all very clear, excellently performed, and pay off in the most thrilling third act in years.
This incredible finale is built off of a slower, yet just as engaging start that continues with a rip-roaring pace through incredible set pieces and hilarious interactions. While Keith David’s and Daniel Kaluuya’s acting prowess creates wonderful chemistry, Kaluuya and Keke Palmer’s contradicting personalities as a struggling to relate to others horse trainer and a life of the party extrovert are cinematic gold together and build a realistic sibling bond that leaps off the screen. Yeun’s poker-faced performance yields great results while Brandon Perea’s comedic timing is damn near perfect and Michael Wincott’s hilarious visual parody of Hoyte Van Hoytema along with pretentious coldness is brilliantly captured while reciting “The Purple People Eater”. This ensemble matched with Peele and Hoytema’s craft along with Michael Abels phenomenal John Williamsesque score that fuses Hip-hop, sci-fi, and western sounds that culminate in THE ultimate summer blockbuster experience that offers great twists, action, and comedy that will build upon Peele’s legacy of giving audiences a philosophy courses full of content to think about long after leaving the theatre. Check it out, have fun, and form your own opinion!
Exploring the Seventh Art 