By George Barreto
After the massive success of ‘Get Out,’ Jordan Peele has been preordained with the insurmountable pressure of recapturing lighting in a bottle. But at every opportunity, Peele finds a way to challenge expectations and sidestep convention by creating films that are unique and unequivocally his. A story about an otherworldly visitor antagonizing a pair of siblings in scattered hills outside Los Angeles feels like it could easily rely on overworn tropes to carry itself. However, it’s what Peele does with the audience’s awareness of tropes and iconography that elevates it into a refreshing and exciting stratosphere.
The film argues that the easiest way we process horror is through entertainment. At its center, the fascinating ensemble of ‘Nope’ witnesses something spectacular and attempts to capture it on footage for the world to see. Even if getting the “Oprah Shot” comes at a price.
A great testament to this theme is the character of Ricky “Jupe” Park (played by Steven Yeun), a small-town theme park mogul who, after witnessing a horrifying incident during a sitcom taping (that we frequently cut back to), is a vacant vessel. His only purpose is to recapture the height of his fame regardless of the exploitation it might take to reach those heights again. He might be one of the most interesting characters in recent blockbuster history. Jupe is so rich with intrigue that he lingers in memory even after the credits roll.
At the story’s center is the brother-and-sister duo OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) of Haywood Hollywood Horses, a black-owned horse wrangling business for stunt horses. In interviews, Jordan Peele has made clear his intention to make a movie that includes unique black stories that have largely been unrepresented by studios. This is exemplified near the beginning of the movie, where Emerald claims she and her brother are descendants of the jockey from ‘The Horse in Motion’, the first series of moving pictures. Peele finds a place where those stories become integral to the piece at large, that of a black cowboy or of the lineage many black families have tied to the film industry since its conception. Hopefully, this will inform studios that powerful narratives carried by the vehicle of specificity are desired but, most importantly, needed.
Peele wonderfully realizes OJ and Emerald’s relationship as one of ups and downs but primarily of loyalty. Their dynamic is both entertaining and heartfelt. A beautiful scene involving them bonding over mutual grief highlights their colorful chemistry and reinforces the palpable personal stakes at play. Kaluuya does a phenomenal job convincing you that the most important canvas is his face. His ability to assert tone with small gestures is unparalleled. Kaluuya portrays an inner turmoil that could so easily fall flat in the hands of a less committed actor, but he draws to breathtaking effect.
‘Nope’ is the first horror movie to be filmed with IMAX cameras, and it uses this vast frame to such a beautiful yet equally terrifying effect. Peele uses familiar western iconography to make a unique sensory experience, even to the extent that the flying saucer resembles a giant cowboy hat. The first scene between OJ and his father Otis (Keith David) has Otis looking like a monument between the hills behind him. It is a shot that constantly replays in my mind. So much wisdom and austerity are informed in one shot; it’s a perfect visual indication of his importance to the people around him. Peele’s horrifying set pieces give way to cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema’s mastery, easing and tightening tension with clarity and purpose. Countless haunting shots already feel like they’re going to be immortalized in the American film pantheon. Two sequences come to mind: one of OJ looking for the UFO in the clouds, the camera gazing back and forth for any semblance of a shadow, and a midpoint sequence involving bathing a house with blood. It’s all so incredibly immersive that the energy in the theater was constantly shifting throughout the film–you could almost sense Peele and Hoytema smiling behind the camera.
The central object of obsession at the heart of the film is the UFO. And what an object it is. There is so much menace and amazement to this shapeshifting entity that its presence never rings false. Peele manages to add a personality to a figure clouded in, well, clouds that permeates the entire film. To buy these characters’ mission, you must first be sold on the threat, and Peele does an outstanding job of that. The curvature and form of the space visitor are abstract while still letting the audience grasp enough familiarity through the endless canon of pop culture aliens. Once again, Peele uses iconography awareness to pull and push expectations.
There’s a lot at work underneath the surface of this film, a lot that one can imagine derives from Peele’s own relationship with the fame that he was inoculated with by general audiences. Ricky Park may be one clear example of that terrifying relationship. One of exploiting one’s trauma through entertainment and being demanded more of the same. It’s clear that there’s a burden that Peele wrestles with, a responsibility, making for a personal blockbuster that we rarely see nowadays. The film in that regard demands repeat viewings, not just for better context but also because it is a simply entertaining piece of media. ‘Nope’ is an exciting, original movie that deserves all the attention.
‘Nope’ is now in theaters.
