Us (2019 film)

Us is a 2019 film about a family whose serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.

Directed and written by Jordan Peele.

We Are Our Own Worst Enemy.  taglines

Red

• Once upon a time, there was a girl and the girl had a shadow. The two were connected, tethered together. When the girl ate, her food was given to her warm and tasty. But when the shadow was hungry, she had to eat rabbit raw and bloody. On Christmas, the girl received wonderful toys; soft and cushy. But the shadow's toys were so sharp and cold they sliced through her hands and fingers when she tried to play with them. The girl met a handsome prince and fell in love. But the shadow at that same time had Abraham. It didn't matter if she loved him or not. He was tethered to the girl's prince after all. Then the girl had her first child, a beautiful baby girl. But the shadow, she gave birth to a little monster! Umbrae was born laughing. The girl had a second child, a boy this time. They had to cut her open and take him from her belly. The shadow had to do it all herself. She named him Pluto, he was born to love fire. So you see, the shadow hated the girl so much for so long...until one day the shadow realized she was being tested by God.

• How it must have been to grow up with a sky. To feel the sun, the wind, the trees. But your people took it for granted. We're human too, you know. Lives. Gave them hands, teeth, and blood. Exactly like you. And yet, it was humans that built this place. I believe they figured out how to make a copy of the body but not the soul. The soul remains one shared by two. They created the Tethered so they could use them to control the ones above. Like puppets. But they failed and they abandoned the Tethered. For generations, the Tethered continued without interactions. They all went mad down here. And then there was us... You remember? We were born special. Fate brought us together that night. I never stopped thinking about you. How things could have been. How you could’ve taken me with you. Years after we met, a miracle of life happened. That's when I saw God. And He showed me my path. You felt it too. The end of our dance. The Tethered saw that I was different. That I would deliver them from this misery. I had found my faith. And I began to prepare. It took years to plan. Everything had to be perfect. I didn't just need to kill you. I needed to make a statement that the whole world would see. It's our time now. Our time up there. And to think, if it weren't for you, I never would've danced at all.

Jason Wilson

• It's us.

Dialogue

Adelaide: Gabe, I wanna go.

Gabe: Where you tryin' to go?

Adelaide: I can't be here, I...It's too much.

Gabe: You serious?

Adelaide: Being here, it, um...It feels like there's this, um... black c-cloud just hanging over me and, uh...I don't feel like myself.

Gabe: I think you look like yourself.

Adelaide: Okay, yeah. When I was a kid, I went to that boardwalk with my parents. I wandered off. I don't know why, I just did. I ended up in that hall of mirrors. There was another girl in there. She looked like me. Exactly like me.

Gabe: You were in the hall of mirrors...

Adelaide: She wasn't a reflection. She was real. She was real. Sh-She... I ran as fast as I could. My whole life, I've... I've thought that she's a devil coming for me.

Gabe: Okay, well, whatever happened, happened a-a long time ago, right?

Adelaide: You know, how sometimes things line up?

Gabe: Yeah.

Adelaide: You know, like, coincidences? Since we've been here, they've been happening more and more. I think... I feel like it means, like, she's getting closer.

Gabe: Who? The mirror girl?

Adelaide: You don't believe me.

Gabe: I-I-I do. I do. I'm processing, okay? It's just... I can't believe you kept all this inside you so long. You know I'm here, right? I'm pretty sure I can kick your ass so if she looks like you, then... Okay, bad joke. All right, I'm sorry. My bad. I'm just trying to lighten the mood.

---

Gabe: Okay, we lost power, go back to bed.

Jason: There's a family in our driveway.

Gabe: There is not a family in our driveway. [looks outside] Huh. Who is that?

Jason: It's a family.

Gabe: Y'all scared of a family?

Zora: The boogeyman's family

Gabe: Okay, all right, enough... enough of that.

---

Gabe: Who are you people?

Red: We're Americans.

---

Kitty: Ophelia, call the police.

Ophelia: Sure. Playing "Fuck tha Police" by N.W.A.

---

Adelaide: We need to move and keep moving. We take the coast. We go to Mexico.

Gabe: Mexico?

Adelaide: Okay.

Gabe: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! We got everything we need here. Food, water, backup generator. We're safe here as we're gonna be anywhere.

Adelaide: [pointing to the dead bodies] Tell that to Josh and Kitty. They're right here.

Gabe: You're scaring the kids.

Zora: Too late.

Jason: Too late.

Adelaide: They think like us. They know where we are. They won't stop until they kill us. Or we kill them.

Gabe: Then, let's make some traps or somethin', like some Home Alone type stuff. That way, if she comes...

Adelaide: Tell me you did not just reference Home Alone.

Gabe: You know what I'm talkin' about.

Adelaide: Gabe, they've been planning this. They have the upper hand. This is the time to run, not to be sprinkling Micro Machines on the floor.

Jason: What are Micro Machines?

Zora: What's Home Alone?

Gabe: We're not going anywhere. And that's final.

Adelaide: You don't get to make the decisions anymore!

---

Zora: I'm driving.

Adelaide: No way.

Gabe: I told her no.

Zora: Dad's leg is messed up, you're handcuffed. It's not safe, I'm driving.

Adelaide: Zora, no!

Zora: I have the highest kill count in the family.

Adelaide: You don't have the highest kill count.

Zora: I killed both twins.

Adelaide: Wrong. I just killed the second one.

Jason: I killed Kitty.

Gabe: [pointing at the family] So that's one, one, one and two. I killed two. I killed myself and Josh, so...

Adelaide: It doesn't matter! Zora, get in the back!

Taglines

• We Are Our Own Worst Enemy.

• Watch Yourself.

About

• “Us” highlights the unwitting complicity of even apparently well-meaning and conscientious people in an unjust order that masquerades as natural and immutable but is, in fact, the product of malevolent designs that leave some languishing in the perma-shadows. (Designed by whom? The movie doesn’t name names, but it winks and nods and nudges in a general direction that runs from the sea to the lake.) It dramatizes this world, but with a twist—one that (avoiding spoilers) risks overturning conventional values and sympathies with ecstatic fervor. Suffice it to say that “Us” reserves empathy for its unwitting villains while gleefully deriding their comfortably normal state of obliviousness—and the ordinary absurdities of the world at large.
  • Richard Brody, New Yorker Review: Jordan Peele’s “Us” Is a Colossal Cinematic Achievement (March 23, 2019)

Cast

• Lupita Nyong'o – Adelaide Wilson (née Thomas) / Red
  • Madison Curry – Young Adelaide / Young Red
  • Ashley McKoy – Teenage Adelaide / Teenage Red
• Winston Duke – Gabriel "Gabe" Wilson / Abraham
• Shahadi Wright Joseph – Zora Wilson / Umbrae
• Evan Alex – Jason Wilson / Pluto
• Elisabeth Moss – Kitty Tyler / Dahlia
• Tim Heidecker – Josh Tyler / Tex
• Cali Sheldon – Becca Tyler / Io
• Noelle Sheldon – Lindsey Tyler / Nix
• Yahya Abdul-Mateen II – Russel Thomas / Weyland
• Anna Diop – Rayne Thomas / Eartha
• Napiera Groves – Dr. Foster / Amethyst
• Duke Nicholson – Danny / Tony
• Kara Hayward – Nancy / Syd
• Nathan Harrington – Glen / Jack
• Dustin Ybarra – Troy / Brand
• Alan Frazier – Ferdie / Jeremiah
• Lon Gowan – Don / Joseph
• Jordan Peele – Dying Rabbit / Fun House Narrator

External links

• Us quotes at the Internet Movie Database