By ROBERT DANVERS
Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun
Written and directed by Jordan Peele
Universal
Jordan Peele’s previous career as actor/sketchcom performer is now disappearing faster into the rearview mirror than a sped-away-from predator in a JURASSIC PARK/WORLD movie. His Oscar-laureled first feature as writer/director, GET OUT, heralded him as an assured new voice in genre filmmaking–and one with something to say, sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly. His next, US, not only avoided the dreaded sophomore jinx but also delved into even more challenging themes and graphic carnage. By now, five and a half years after GET OUT and over two years into a pandemic that had a chilling effect on moviegoing, highly original work like Peele’s is a boon–and any new horror tale from him merits attention being paid.
NOPE, his new movie, was “Shot with IMAX Film Cameras,” per the one-sheet poster. Not to get hyperbolic, but this is one summer flick that warrants being seen on the big (whether IMAX or IMAX-adjacent) screen. Communing with gold-standard cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN), who here ups his game as his own A-camera/primary operator, Peele paints on a bigger (and higher) canvas than ever before. But, is bigger necessarily better?
Following a disturbing-tableau prologue–which adds further mythology to the name of Peele’s own production company, and during which we first hear the film’s title uttered–the setting shifts to present-day inland California, in a mountain-ringed region. A little house on a prairie, and a slightly bigger ranch, represent the four-generations-strong family homestead and workspace for Haywood’s Hollywood Horses. The Haywoods’ cared-for equines are loaned out to movie and TV commercial shoots; in a pre-credits sequence that doubles down on the ominousness of the prologue, OJ Haywood (GET OUT star Daniel Kaluuya) witnesses a tragic and seemingly inexplicable accident. Six months later, he is struggling to keep his inherited vocation afloat–and then his footloose sister Emerald (Keke Palmer of SCREAM QUEENS) invades a soundstage shoot which soon goes south.
Back at the ranch, Emerald decides to stay for a spell. (Peele has gone on record saying that he wanted to embrace “black joy” with NOPE, and it is indeed a pleasure to see a sibling relationship enacted by Kaluuya, laconic and deftly contained, and Palmer, all gregarious bravado.) While brother and sister get to know each other anew and try to reconcile their differing ideas of what’s best for the family business, we are introduced to the ranch’s more prosperous neighbor. Jupiter’s Claim is an Old West theme park headlined and run by former child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park (THE WALKING DEAD’s Steven Yeun), and its fairgrounds and environs are one of several instances here wherein Peele seems to have visited Quentin Tarantino’s playground (others include segmented chapter-style headings for passages of the story, and underseen-actor castings). Ricky is solicitous and friendly to the Haywoods, but tensions are percolating just beneath the surface given the lack of revenue to go around.
Any summary of NOPE should stop here to preserve the surprises that follow, not least because Peele conjures some of his most terrifying imagery and hold-your-breath sequences to date. While it’s not giving anything away (since even the teaser trailer alluded to it) that there is a “We are not alone” component to the story, how and in what manner this materializes should not be Spoilered. “ ‘Bad miracles’–they got a name for that?” asks OJ…as well he might…
What with the dynamic lensing and Michael Abels’ terrifically varied score arguably topping his excellent work on Peele’s first two movies, NOPE comes on strong even when uneventfully laying groundwork for imminent developments. Peele prizes the interplay among his actors, making room once again for humor and cultural/societal fillips; the latter references he makes are kept credibly within the vantage points of the characters. In terms of showmanship, Peele ups the ante on fellow horror auteur Ari Aster by following the unsettling use of “I Got 5 on It” in US with another instance here of a song being deployed in such a manner that you may never again be able to hear it in its original form/intent.
For all this, though, NOPE begins to spin its wheels rather too noisily in the final third. The movie runs 131 minutes, and ultimately feels as if it could–and should–have been pruned to under two hours; even with its emotionally and physically complex plotting, US hit that mark. Also on the plotting tip, both GET OUT and US kept viewers off balance in the late going and even beyond; NOPE is structured so that at a certain point, it streamlines its focus for audience participation, but the net effect is that the desired impact gets watered down when it should be bubbling over.
There’s still a lot to enjoy here, and that extends to one final bonus; moviegoers seeing NOPE are advised to stay through the very end of the credits, since Peele has some fitting fun with a longstanding studio tradition. It’s a little something that sends you out ready to look forward to whatever strange visions he brings forth next.
