Nope

Nope is the third entry in Jordan Peele’s signature filmography, which in such a short space of time has already seen a cult of personality and a strong sense of auteurship created around the writer/director/producer extraordinaire. I feel that this is both a blessing and curse. Because the high praise for his work is certainty earned, and his abilities endure through this third film. However, him delivering back-to-back crowd-pleasing, original horror films off the bat, I think has created narrow expectations from audiences of what they want Peele to deliver, as already seen from responses to Nope. Because I really liked Nope a lot, but it’s a more obscured and dense text than his previous films, and you kinda need to meet it halfway in order to really be affected by it. While Get Out and Us are very overtly allegorical and insert themselves cleanly into the horror cannon, Nope is much more difficult to define. It has sociological and psychological themes as strong as his other films, but they don’t present themselves as willingly, and require a little deeper of a reading. It has some more obvious, surface-level themes of animal exploitation. But on a deeper level, it’s really a compelling testament to how willing humans are to participate in exploitation for the purpose of entertainment, and where the line is with personal gain and notoriety versus what it costs you to obtain it. It’s a tribute to the modern human instinct to capture images, including everything from cinematographers, to TMZ reporters, to theme park photo booths in its exploration of this inexplicable desperation to live moments of our lives through a lens. It’s far more about this pursuit than it is about the actual mysterious entity at the centre of this film, which I really like that Peele does not ever over-explain or strictly define. In terms of genre and tone, Nope is so much more of a melting pot than previously seen from Peele. In stark contrast to his other films, I really wouldn’t even consider this a horror, thought it certainly has moments of palpable terror within. It has notes of Spielbergian sci-fi adventure with the camaraderie of the rag-tag group who come together in pursuit of capturing proof of the sci-fi entity. It additionally features aspects of tension regarding the entertainment industry, with the collaborative nature of filmmaking and the people who exist on the fringes of that and are trying not to get pushed out. The dynamic of Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya as the dual leads of this film is a very striking one. While Keke is firing on all cylinders and exuding charisma as Emerald Haywood, Kaluuya is far more reserved and interior as her brother OJ. I think it’s really admirable for an actor as absolutely formidable as Kaluuya, especially on the back of his first Oscar win, to be willing to take on a very non-showy role in which he has to be comfortable with subtlety and silence next to a co-star who has to give the opposite. The pair giving such contrasting performances, but both being so exemplary at doing do, provides a strong backbone for Peele’s execution of this story. And I think had either performance not had the other to balance it out, it would be totally ineffective. It’s a ying and yang effect. Additionally, Steven Yeun is given a small but key role as child star-turned theme park owner Jupe, whose story provides my highlight of the film. Nope opens with a scene unrelated to the central narrative of the Haywood siblings, but very thematically resonant with the story in its true meaning. That scene is then revisited later on in an extended form. It is the most disturbing and bone-chilling moment of the film, which gives Peele a chance to remind us how utterly skilled he is in crafting evocative horror imagery. It is also by far the piece of this film that will stick with me the most. I’ve seen many criticisms of Nope that I disagree with and honestly just exhibit a lack of strong media literacy from many viewers (side note on this matter: Logan Paul’s Twitter thread about why Nope is the ‘worst movie he’s ever seen’ is truly one of the most braindead things I have ever read. That man of all people not being able to understand the film’s message about exploitation for the creation of media is truly a moment so deeply ironic I can’t even fathom it. There are such clear shades of Paul and others like him in the TMZ character who appears in the film, you couldn’t write a joke as funny as him not getting it). Many of these general criticisms, though, revolve around this scene that I’m referring to, being unrelated to the larger plot or not ‘paying off’. But as I’ve tried to convey, you just need to shed your expectations for overt narrative ‘payoff’ and take it as a piece of the larger thematic puzzle. The ending of the film, which again some have called ‘unsatisfying’ or ‘incomplete’ mirrors this general idea I’ve been expressing about Nope, as something which is less clearly drawn, and more of a raw text for you to extract from it what you may. I found it very compelling and while I initially felt positive about the film, that has only continued to grow as I’ve had more time to think about it and let its ideas marinate. Nope is somewhat oxymoronic. On the one hand, it should be Peele’s most accessible film to date. It has a far larger budget than he’s had previously and it’s a true blockbuster in its sci-fi and action/adventure sensibilities. However, in reality, I believe Nope is Peele’s most inaccessible film by far. And that’s not at all a bad thing! It not does not present itself to you as overtly and readily accessible to understand. It’s a far more raw collection of ideas and requires you to do a little deciphering into the depths of its themes, which is what I enjoyed about the experience. It’s definitely not as good as Get Out, because that film is just lightning in a bottle and an all-time great debut. However, I think I could like it more than Us, especially as I continue to sit with it. It’s definitely one of my favourite things the year has had to offer thus far.