So for once, I’m going to be bang on time for a film review and I’m feeling pretty smug about it. I had the privilege of seeing Get Out in the US while I was there, a good fortnight before it was due to land over here. Not only that but I got to see it in a gorgeous old cinema in LA with Jessica and a bunch of her friends. And privilege is an apt to use in this context as I don’t think I’ve seen a film that felt so current and relevant to the time it was released- maybe ever…White privilege, racism, white feminism, coastal elites, American liberals, cultural appropriation, police brutality… it’s all here in a genre defining comedy, horror, thriller mash up. And it’s simultaneously smart and less dry and academic than a project that ambitious sounds! It’s a difficult review to write as the twist or sort of hook the whole film rests on is so important, it makes it exceptionally tricky to discuss without spoiling it. A couple of people who have seen the trailer have asked me like , “yeah but what actually happens?” and I felt the same going in. Just watch it, don’t ask. To be honest, I wouldn’t even watch the trailers as there’s a rogue one doing the rounds that gives far too much away. Having said that, I’ll do my best to sell it to the Brits while keeping my gob shut about the surprise. Young, black photographer Christopher Washington(Daniel Kaluuya) has been seeing his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Girls’ Allison Williams) for several months and is at the ‘meet the parents’ stage. He expresses trepidation about meeting her white family, wondering if she has told them he is black and she quickly reassures him that her parents are not racist, and that she hasn’t told them as it wouldn’t be an issue. So he sets off to a deliberately unnamed, upper- middle class suburb from the also unnamed city where the pair live. We meet her family as Chris does, seeing the whole daunting experience from his perspective. Dad, Dean(Bradley Whitford) and ‘Mom’ Missy(Catherine Keener) are your archetypal, New York Times reading, ‘coastal elite’ liberals. Call ‘em what you will. Dad would even have ‘voted for Obama a third time if he could..’ or so he clumsily tells Chris in an attempt to display how NOT racist he is. The dynamics of this class of family and people in the US was absolutely bloody spot on. Strangely, I have spent more time in the company of upper-middle class Americans and their parents than I ever have done with their counterparts across the pond! I don’t know anyone particularly posh in the UK(you big bunch of scrotes) but having spent a year at Wellesley College, I have been invited into the family homes of people whose parents are doctors, lawyers, even bloody judges etc. And while ,you’ll be surprised to know, I’ve never spent any time with these people as a black man, I certainly recognised the ostensible set up. And that is one of the approximately 8 thousand things that is so great about this film. This is not Mississippi Burning. It is not designed for white liberals to go in, tut tut about racist southern rednecks in a bygone era, pat themselves on the back and go home. It’s well-meaning, white liberals, the stupid shit they say and the constant micro-aggressions black people experience while interacting with them over time. It’s your Obama voting parents. And yes, it’s you. Hollywood has let liberals off the racism hook for far too long and this felt very different. Even so, so far so Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner 2017, right? Well, no. Things steadily start to seem very off and very weird about the Armitage family, the place they live and the behaviour of the black staff members they have in their house. As Chris struggles to figure out whether he simply feels uncomfortable being fetishized as a black man in predominantly white company or whether something more sinister is at play, the film moves neatly into full-on thriller mode. Chris needs to Get Out. Now I’m not gonna lie, I found it pretty scary. It’s mainly a feeling of creeping dread and tension but there was also a cardigan over my head part and a “OHMYGOD!” shouted at full volume. But even with my very low tolerance for horror I could still handle it, so don’t let the ‘horror movie’ label put you off if that’s not normally your bag. Jordan Peele deserves all the praise for getting the tone absolutely bang on in terms of comedy and horror. I can’t think of any other ‘horror comedy’ I’ve really enjoyed. Maybe Scream?(!) And that basically just had a really scary first 20 minutes and then an unfunny and un-scary couple of hours. In a promotional interview, Peele said the film had a “satirical note in the premise” but that they then “take it very seriously as a thriller.” And I think that nails it, really. This is a scary film. It’s also a film you definitely need to see twice, which Peele also admits to being a deliberate move on his behalf. Once you know the twist you want to go back and see the bits where you didn’t know the twist again to see how you missed it, basically! You’ll also want to go back for the music. Wow, was it well scored. The opening theme was an incredible kind of mash up of a guitar, country v American style backing that could easily have been used in, say True Detective, but with Swahili singing and lyrics over the top. Being the film music geek I am, I tracked it down and discovered the lyrics Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga roughly translate to: “listen to your ancestors,” which is perfect and gave me serious shivers. So, I’ll definitely be going back for a second viewing this side of the pond. But also because I think it will be very interesting to see how it plays over here. This is a very American film. Yet there’s a tendency, which god knows I’m also guilty of, to write the issues this film deals with off as purely American. Smug Guardian reading liberals like myself know there is endemic racism in the UK but it’s not as bad as the US, right? We can always console ourselves with that, eh? We read articles on Black Lives Matter and know the names of people killed by the US police but we don’t know the names Joy Gardner, Sheku Bayoh and Sarah Reed. All of whom died in recent memory in UK police custody under suspicious circumstances. (I had to google all three). Many white, young people in this country, myself included, are from a generation with vastly improved social awareness compared to their parents and certainly their grandparents. This means we cringe and smugly put our parents right with their outdated lexicons and assumptions while often failing to see it in ourselves and bristling when we're pulled up on it. We desperately want to be savvy, cosmopolitan and in the know. Having our ignorance pointed out is, basically, our biggest fear. I went to see this film with a group of black and mixed Americans in downtown LA. On my way into the theatre, I had a smug moment of thinking ‘wow, look at me. I’m so 21st century and American.’ Does this make me racist? I don’t think so. I hope not. But it makes me a bit of a fucking berk and essentially no better than Rose’s “I’d vote for Obama three times if I could” Dad. This film is so important because you see the entire thing unfold from the black protagonist's perspective. You see the awkwardness of white people in your presence, the personal questions, the questions directed solely at you, the arrival of law enforcement signalling more bad news rather than rescue from your peril- just one of many horror tropes that are flipped so cleverly. For black people I imagine this must be incredibly refreshing and for white people it's an eye-opener. So, white Brits who follow this blog, go and see it. I cannot recommend it enough and It’ll probably be the best film you see this year. The performances are brilliant(Daniel Kaluuya is, incidentally, a brit- banging American accent), the tension is incredible and the twist is gut-dropping. You’ll most likely also laugh out loud at several points. Just, hey...don’t forget the joke's on you.
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