The Failure Of "Us"

Enough time has passed for me to talk about this movie and talk about it I shall since I've been wanting to ever since I watched...or read the spoilers (I'm sorry, "Hereditary" taught me to never trust a hyped movie again) and now that we're a year and some change after its release I figured spoilers can now abound. From the title, you can tell that this won't be a flattering review but it won't be a scathing review either. Rather it'll be a review of the 2 critical failures that make "Us" an unfortunate attempt at being deeper than what it already was. So SPOILERS ABOUND, let's dive in.So if you have seen "Us" or haven't seen "Us" either way you obviously don't care about spoilers so welcome! So as I said, let's dive in proper with the ending and the reveal. Let's talk about the ending first in the final reveal we discover that Red is actually the real Adelaide and the woman we've been following is actually Tethered this entire time, while good on its face once given any real thought the whole story falls apart. The first part of it is why didn't Adelaide escape? We've seen that she was capable of escaping (after all she does it in the movie and there wasn't any actual reason given as to how she managed to untether...actually no reason was given for how any of them untethered...other than the dance sequence...geez this is a long aside) and we've seen just how easy it is to get in and out of that facility so what stopped her? I speculate that it was probably her parents but what about when she was a teenager? She had to have had moments where she was by herself.

Furthermore, the film never explains why Adelaide suddenly become linked to Red, was it the location? If so then how did the link become severed? Let's table that and address what I believe to be the bigger elephant in the room and that's the actual reveal. The reveal ultimately changes nothing about Adelaide's family Jason realizes that his mom is actually a Tethered BUT...therein lies the problem, that's still his mom. Their relationship hasn't changed he just found out that she isn't exactly human, but that's still his mom, she's not a different person and while the news is unsettling, unsettling news doesn't change years worth of a relationship, especially if it's your mother. So while I get it, Red (the real Adelaide) was not Jason's mom and has no relation to him at all. Despite being an actual Human, like Jason, Red (The real Adelaide) is actually just some crazy woman who looks like his mom that's trying to kill him and his mom. So while Jason's realization adds an unsettling end to the movie, he'll eventually come to realize that that's his mom and always will be and besides America is pretty much over considering the Tethered rose up and attacked everyone.

"I'm off to see the surface! The wonderful surface of....er....Earth?"

Moving along, the main reason I think "Us" despite all its flaws (and there are many) is a decent flick is because it's basically a revenge film told from the perspective of the character who has it coming and knows it. Adelaide's paranoia is actually warranted because she did this really bad thing and knows it's just a matter of time before it caught up to her and it does. Adelaide doesn't play the role as innocent but rather plays it as an ex-con faced with the reality that they're going back to prison and her actions are that of a person who never wants to go back. In the end, Red's actions against Adelaide are justified BUT not against the entire world (hence why despite everything she's still the villain). Ultimately, "Us" left too many unanswered questions and not the kind of questions you can't not answer, like how why Adelaide became tethered in the first place (was it just because she was surrounded by madness for so long that she became mad) or how she managed to break the tethering (the dancing suggests that the link was broken then if it was broken why did Adelaide choose to stay)?

"I can dance if I want to, I can leave the surface behind, because if the tethered don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of mine..."

One of the main problems with "Us" is that you can't even re-work the twist because anyone with half a brain would realize that if you have a movie in which two characters are identical they're going to get switched. The main issue is that the switch occurred earlier in life rather than later. If Adelaide as an adult woman walked into the house of mirrors and was kidnapped by Red and replaced and went on to raise Jason as her own from an infant that would change the context and but you'd really have to work to sell that switch. Ultimately, "Us" is a weak film although credit to Jordan Peele for bringing doppelgangers into the modern lexicon. I can't fault people for thinking this is a good movie, it certainly had the potential to be great but the obvious twist and lack of any real stakes for Red other than revenge makes the film fall kind of flat for me. Anyway let me know what you guys think!