S.welcomed at the exit (in 2019) as the horror of the decade, We arrives tonight on the first tv on Italia 1 at 21.25. Written and directed by the phenomenon Jordan Peele, the film with protagonist Lupita Nyong’o (in an astonishing test) he immerses himself in the dark side of contemporary America. Telling the descent into hell of a family middle class African-American struggling with the disturbing appearance of their “double”, aggressive, poor and hungry for social redemption.
A film from very strong political connotation which gives the viewer not a few chills but also pushes him to a reflection on society. And to question the “monsters” created by class differences: a serious question, especially in the United States.
We: the plot of the movie
Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) returns to her childhood home in California to spend the summer holidays with her husband Gabe and their two little children. Soon, however, also due to a series of disturbing coincidences, an unresolved trauma from his past comes to the surface, leading her to paranoia and making her believe that something bad is about to happen to his family.
At the end of an intense day at the beach with friends, he sees the silhouettes of four figures holding hands in the driveway of their house. Who are they but above all what do they want? In reality, the four mysterious figures are gods doppelgänger of family members, doubles, armed with strange golden scissors and thirsty for revenge: chalfway reaction between George A. Romero’s zombies and Don Siegel’s body snatchers.
An indictment of the company
Since the release of Run – Get Out in 2017, the director and screenwriter Jordan Peele acquired the status of enfant prodige of horror cinema: thanks to his storytelling and suspense building skills but not only. The former comedian has (re) brought too socio-political elements in a genre that for too many years had lived on superficiality and past glories.
Self Run – Get Out had as its strong point the focus on white power that engulfs African Americans, We broaden your gaze to the whole country. Since the original title: that “Us” which means “We” but also stands for “United States”. And it is precisely on the history of the United States that the film opens, returning to 1986: then President Ronald Reagan launched the charity campaign that year Hands Across America which, in the wake of initiatives such as USA for Africa, invited the Americans to open their eyes to the disadvantaged social classes.
The film, after the disturbing prologue, makes a time jump up to the present day, with an explicit il Reagan-Trump parallelism. The director focuses on “proletarian” violence and class struggle, denouncing how it can be victims but also indirectly accomplices of a sick system, without realizing it.
Peele thus recounts the collapse of the American dream – and therefore indirectly of the US model of globalization – but also the rise of populism. A phenomenon that unites the whole West.
Perfectly master of the mechanisms of suspense, the director keeps the viewer nailed to the sofa until the final twist, which we do not reveal, and which allows you to re-tie all the narrative threads. The film is a bit too Manichean, and the narrative presents some inconsistency, but convinces nonetheless: a ferocious (and sacrosanct) indictment of contemporary evils.
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