To paraphrase critic Armond White, whose career is based on being a contrarian : “Get Out” is an attenuated comedy sketch that is tailored to please the liberal status quo”. Really? If that’s what you’ve taken away from this movie—hardly a comedy, by the way, though not without its comic relief—then I might say your cynicism has eclipsed your capacity to recognize when a film’s plotting is ultimately a means of subverting simple expectations and pre-conceived notions in order to make a much more concise statement.
I know White just wants the attention (he spitefully spoils it in the first paragraph of his review, by the way), but I bring up his 100% RT-busting critique because it describes exactly how not to take in this movie. Yes, the case of racial tension is in the forefront: a black guy in a “Meet The Parents” scenario with his white girlfriend and even whiter family in an idyllic country setting. A reversal of the norm in the horror genre. A vision of the suburbs as a terrifying place when 
perspective is re-calibrated. But it goes so far beyond that. Racism takes a different, more horrifying shape here.
If writer director Jordan Peele (half of the Key & Peele comedy duo) wanted to take the cheap and easy route to simply appease people, believe me, he had every opportunity to do so. But this intense, clever thriller doesn’t go that way. To be fair, I would also criticize Andre Seewood for his diatribe about hyper-tokenism in “Star Wars VII”, diminishing and trivializing the black protagonist’s significant and consequential role by doing so. And I think that simplifying “Get Out” as a partisan ploy to vilify white people is damaging to the intelligence and originality of a film that will appeal to a very broad demographic. It reminds me of that “Seinfeld” episode, in which Jerry’s dentist makes a few terrible anti-semitic jokes. And this offends you as a Jew? he’s asked. No, it offends me as a comedian!
“Get Out” stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, an up-and-coming photographer with a rare eye. He and his girlfriend Rose (played by Allison Williams) are headed to her folks’ estate, and he’s nervous because she hasn’t told them that he’s black. She insists they’re not racist. At first, that seems to be true, but mom and dad Armitage (Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener) quickly start to overcompensate. Nerves, maybe. Whitford’s Dean mentions that his deceased father almost got over losing to Jesse Owens in the Berlin Olympics, then openly cops to the cliché of having black employees—groundskeeper Walter (Marcus Henderson) and housekeeper Georgina (Betty Gabriel), who seem like they were teleported from the 1800’s. They used to take care of Dean’s parents before they passed, says Dean, and he just couldn’t stand to let them go. Then there’s the Obama discussion that Rose warned Chris would inevitably occur.
And Mrs. Armitage is a psychiatrist with a propensity for hypnotizing people, and offers (i.e. manipulates) to cure Chris of his smoking habit. Meanwhile, Chris’s buddy Rod (Lil Rel Howery) is convinced the white folks are running some sort of kinky sex slave operation when he believes his friend has gone missing (hilarious police station scene with Erika Alexander).
There’s a party. And then they show up in droves, aging caucasian country-clubbers who have all sorts of questions for Chris—some less appropriate than others—a microcosm of extreme, old school right-wing mentality. The one black guy who shows up (Lakeith Stanfield) is dressed for the Kentucky Derby in the 1940’s.
Everything is odd. Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) is a drunk with an out-of-place Brooklyn accent who’s obsessed with MMA and almost puts Chris in a headlock at dinner after commenting about his genetic makeup. I’ll go no further into the plot, so just chew on that information for a while.
Jordan Peele’s script is without an ounce of fat. After a second viewing, I picked up on several things that seemed all the more ingenious because the first time around, they appeared inconsequential (particularly after Rose and Chris hit a deer on their way to the Armitage compound). The jump scares are rarely without merit, but the atmosphere is what really bites. Daniel Kaluuya’s performance is nearly perfect: his character is uncomfortable and apprehensive all the way, and in addition to his inherent skepticism, he’s forced to contend with some long suppressed demons involving his own family. Brilliant stuff abounds. Peele wrangles us in by addressing the elephant in the room quickly, so immediately we’re wondering where it’s going to go for the next 90 minutes. Probably not where you think. While you’re wondering, Michael Abels’ score will make your hair stand on end.
Area Theaters
—M. Parsons 2017
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