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Get Out


Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, and Bradley Whitford
Directed by: Jordan Peele
Screenplay by: Jordan Peele

     Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) are in a seemingly serious relationship.  And now it's time for Chris to meet Rose's parents.  There may be tensions when Rose's family (who is white) meets Chris (who is black).  It's not the interracial love story you might be looking for.  It's an interracial love/horror/mystery story that will surely take you for a wild ride.
     The problems begin even before Chris and Rose arrive at the family home.  Rose hasn't told her parents that Chris is black.  Once they arrive, Chris notices a lack of African American people.  There are a few; Georgina (Betty Gabriel), who helps around the house with Rose's parents, and Walter (Marcus Henderson), who does yard and landscaping work outside the house.  They act a little strange, Chris notices at first, but doesn't think much about it.  They speak in a relatively monotone way and do only as they are told; nothing more.  He even feels that Rose's parents are hiding something.  Rose's mother, Missy (Catherine Keener), is a psychiatrist who constantly nags Chris about hypnotizing him.  She thinks it will help him to quit smoking, but as the film goes on and Chris begins to feel stranger and stranger in their home, he realizes there is something more than just helping him quit smoking that Missy wants to do.  She wants to suppress him in some way, kind of like the way Georgina and Walter are.
     The family has the whole extended family over one day during Rose and Chris's stay.  Only one other black person arrives to the gathering.  The rest of the family is white.  He notices the other black person acting like Walter and Georgina, however, suggesting something is very wrong.  There is no way for Chris to feel comfortable at this family reunion and no way for Chris to leave unless Rose wants to leave with him.  As the film goes on, Chris finds himself in increasingly difficult situations to get out of, and feels the pressure of a seriously racist family (although they don't seem like it on the surface).  As Chris finds out more about the family's history as well as Rose's history with black men, he realizes he is in trouble and needs to find a way to quite literally "get out".
     When I think of Jordan Peele, I think of two things; one half of the hilarious duo, Key and Peele, and an alumnus of my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College in New York.  Get Out is most certainly not a comedy film, but rather a highly intellectual horror film that showcases examples of racism in America.  While there are a few moments to shock the viewer, it's not the type of film that focuses on that, but instead the overall disturbing factor of the film.  Get Out scares you by disturbing you.
      I give Get Out an A-.

Image Source: theoptimistmoviereview.blogspot.com
   

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