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Jordan Peele has a real gift for parting shots.
But first, the groundwork.
From the start, Lupita Nyongos Adelaide Wilson has an uncanny feeling.
Because of that, shes reluctant to venture anywhere near the beachside amusement park of her memories.
From that point,Usbecomes a game of predator and prey.
The Shadows set upon annihilating their doubles with their scissors; the doubles perform feats unimaginable to survive.
The hapless white couple dies.
Their equally hapless Shadows perish, too.
The Shadow named Red, the mirror image from Adelaides past, just happens to be their leader.
And when it does, no amount of creature comforts will protect you.
Theres a buffet of potential metaphors baked intoUs.
With so much Regan-era imagery Hands Across America,VHS tapes ofThe Right StuffandC.H.U.D.
it could even read as a commentary on the success and failures of Gen X policy-making.
The ending itself happens fairly quickly.
Both are mothers and wives.
Both have killed to survive, and both are fighting to live as the person instead of the tethered.
But their differences abound.
Adelaide was able to pass as someone who belonged above ground.
Red, meanwhile, was snatched from her life in the sun and handcuffed to the darkness.
She lost her voice, ate raw rabbit, married a brute, and gave birth to monsters.
Being born above did nothing to insulate her from the horrors of the underground.
Privilege is not a product of some noble destiny; its just an accident of birth.
(Even in her tragic circumstances, however, the status Peele gives Red should not be overlooked.
And so we return to the films closing shot.
