[Taken from Chocolate Films]
I’ve got to believe that Jordan Peele made this movie by accident. That would be the only explanation. That would be the only way the world would carry on making sense. How can a filmmaker produce something like Get Out on his first go round? That would be like striking gold on your first expedition.
Get Out is a stunningly good film, which only gets better after it has finished. This fucking moving takes over your mind, surprising and delighting you with little tidbits that you never really understood while you were watching it. Like why the hell was the black grounds keeper running like that? The hidden meaning behind what the blind man wanted from Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris. What did Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford, aka Josh motherfucking Lyman) say about why the basement was closed again? Honestly, there is so much little stuff in this film that make such a big impact. I have got to believe it was unintentional. There is no way Jordan Peele… *sighs*…
Let me step back a bit. Get Out is about a black lad, the aforementioned Chris, meeting his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) parents. Let me just say, what gets lost in the chatter about this movie is just how greatWilliams is here. The fact that I and other black people get so caught up with her character’s deeds is a testament to how fantastic she is. And I couldn’t be prouder of Daniel Kaluuya – a (very) black, British man threatening Idris’ crown.
Yes there is a lot of social politics in this movie – but I absolutely reject that this is an anti-white movie. I could be projecting, but I don’t see Jordan Peele, a black man (he’s actually mixed-race but we all know how society sees him) who is married to a white woman, making a film with the overriding message being fuck white people. For me, it is far deeper than that.
The conversations that Chris has with his TSA homie, where he is warned to beware of white folk (although he is proved right in this case) are all too familiar to me. The black police lady’s comment about white women also rings a bell. Chris’ absent father is a tale as old as time within the black community, in American and here in the UK. All of these elements, along with the appropriation of black culture and how often both the white and black worlds clash, play a role in sending black men into the sunken place.
Ultimately that is what this movie is about to me, it is about the fight black men have every day to just be themselves. Not having to hide their blackness from white folk or prove their blackness to black people. The metaphor of the sunken place is something that hit me like a bag of bricks, because I feel like I’ve been there – when you feel like the world has taken your identity away from you.
Get Out feels special. But I want to be cautious, watch it a couple more times and wait a few more years. This film feels like it will sit along side Coming to America and Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. This feels like a classic black movie to me.
Just a normal everyday bloke writing about films.