Day 50 - Get Out


Day 50              Get Out [2017]
                          
Screenplay                    Jordan Peele
Director                         Jordan Peele
Cinematography            Toby Oliver
Music                            Michael Abels
Leads                            Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Catherine Keener, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield
Production                     Blumhouse Productions, Monkeypaw Productions, QC Entertainment

IMDb                                7.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes                99%

It’s taken me a while to see this one, but I finally settled in to watch it and it did not disappoint. The film is about a black man, Chris (Kaluuya), who goes to meet the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Williams), at their secluded estate in the woods. Now usually I wouldn’t need to highlight their race, but the racial element is the key to this film. It all seems normal enough to begin with, but Peele slowly reveals to us a whole bunch of things that set you on edge. The main one being that the unusual behaviour of the Armitage’s black maid and black gardener. In fact, everyone’s behaviour is strange, apart from Chris. I’m not sure whether to call it a horror film or not, but it’s an original film, and is scary in a very real way. For example, the final scene where Chris is lying in the road and we see the flashing lights of a police car. Normally, this would be a welcoming sight as our ‘hero’ is going to be safe, however, we then realise that all the police officer sees is a black man standing over a white woman who has been shot in a white neighbourhood. Peele even gets Rose to start shouting for help too as she has realised the same thing. The whole thing could well have been a Black Mirror episode, which is fitting seeing as Kaluuya was in the ‘Five Million Merits’ episode. It’s a refreshing film, and yet another Oscar contender, and I hope Peele goes on to make more films of this standard.

Acting                           3.5 / 4
Writing                          3.5 / 4
Cinematography               3 / 4
Music                               3 / 4

HWF rating              3.5 / 4