In the weeks since Jordan Peele’s Us hit theaters we’ve all done what most moviegoers do these days: obsessively dissect every frame and detail for hidden clues and deeper meaning. The internet has already collected every easter egg in the horror hit, shared the most intriguing and absurd fan theories—sorry, but we just can’t get on board with that Pluto/Jason theory—and explained the ending ten times over. Peele has also shed some light on a few elements, but now he’s provided more insight on the meaning behind the ending and that final twist.
Now’s a good time to stop reading if you haven’t seen Us yet, and somehow miraculously managed to avoid spoilers. In the film’s final moments, as Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) and her family flee from the chaos at Santa Cruz, a flashback reveals Adelaide and her Tethered self Red switched places years ago inside the hall of mirrors. The above-ground Adelaide we’ve been following all along is actually Red, while the “real” version of Nyong’o’s character is the one who’s been plotting to get justice in the tunnels below.
Now, it’s not exactly a surprising twist, considering that Peele peppers his film with rather obvious clues alluding to the switch from the jump. (And honestly, it’s debatable whether the moment should be considered a “twist” at all, but that’s a discussion for another time.) But still, what does it all mean to Peele? Luckily, he’s the type of filmmaker willing to explain his movies—or maybe not luckily if you prefer the Lynchian camp of directors who refuse to explain—so he dropped by The Empire Film Podcast (h/t Uproxx) to share his take on that ending.
“This movie’s about maybe the monster is you,” Peele told Empire’s Chris Hewitt when asked to break down the ending. “It’s about us kind of looking at ourselves as individuals and as a group. The protagonist in a movie is the surrogate for the audience. So it felt like, at the end of the day, I wasn’t doing my core theme any justice if I wasn’t revealing that we have been the bad guy in this movie. We’ve been following the villain.” Peele added that he uses “villain” lightly, since Us is interested in raising questions around what differentiates good from evil, and they ways in which we perceive otherness through the Tethered and Untethered.
Peele also spoke about that much-discussed look Adelaide shoots Jason at the end of the film. “I think the little smile she gives him is a lot of things,” he said. “I think it’s a connection to the evil smile she once had as a little girl, but also a sort of understanding that her family unit was stronger from this experience.”
If you’re still itching for more Us analysis, head to Empire to listen to the full episode.
56 Comments
“Maybe the monster is you”I wish I could roll my eyes further back into my head.We’re supposed to see Adelaide as a villain rather than a survivor when she escaped hell on earth? Who do we have left to identify with — the real Adelaide, who organized a genocide to make a vague point (that Peele doesn’t even address here) instead of just leaving the facility once unchained, which was clearly possible? Ugh.
She’s not a villain for escaping. She’s a villain for closing the door behind her.
Although there wasn’t a literal door, which is one of the odd things about the premise. Handcuffing her opposite was quite bad though.
While this is an excellent two-liner, does the movie actually earn it? I may not have caught the reason the real Adelaide couldn’t leave once she was free from her chain, but your response doesn’t really clarify that. The thing that worries me about most analysis of this movie is that it’s often reduced to snappy but underwrought platitudes exactly like this one, because there isn’t much substance to support any of it.
It’s not the movie’s job to tell or explain to us whether she’s a villain or not – it’s up to us as viewers to observe her actions and decide for ourselves. I saw someone with the opportunity to free slaves (of a kind) and didn’t. Instead, she looked after herself. I think that makes her villainous, but that’s purely subjective. If you don’t see it the same way, that’s fine, of course. But the movie gave you everything you needed to make that decision.
She’s not the villain who thinks she’s a villain, she’s the villain who’s the villain because her vill- because her villainy— because—I’m sorry what were we talking about? Oooh shiny!
Off topic, just wanted to congratulate you on one of the all time great user handles.
Thank you! Keep your eyes peeled for this month’s special double issue where The Human Stain punches out Punctuality!
No, we’re not supposed to see her as a villain in the pure sense; we’re supposed to see that anyone can be a hero or a villain, at different times, and from different perspectives. Who we have left to identify with is: everybody, because we’re complex, and we have strengths and weaknesses, as signified by the strengths and weaknesses, the good and the bad in all the characters.Not every story needs a “good guy.”
I know that not every story needs a good guy, and I’m getting tired of being condescended to as if I’m a film novice every time I criticize this movie. Your comment could be applied to an incredible number of films, and doesn’t make Us particularly special or insightful. Didn’t we go through our antihero phase already? And can you really make a good-faith argument that any character other than Adelaide was drawn in more than 2 dimensions? Why identify with people we don’t understand?
I wasn’t condescending to you; I was just conversing with you. And I wasn’t actually arguing that the movie was particularly special or insightful.
Ah, I’m sorry for the overreaction; my claws were out!
Hey, I know how condescending people can be toward strangers on the internet, so it’s not unusual to find claws at the ready. 🙂
Thank you for this. Please see my above comment to KanekofanAtWork. I know I’m spitting into the ocean, but anytime I see such basic decency and – gasp! – reasonable thought displayed in a forum like this, I feel it should be commended.
I want to commend you for your civility in this thread. “I’m sorry for the overreaction” might be the least-heard and (not coincidentally) most-needed phrase on the web. Thank you.
Well thank you! I’ve made myself look like an idiot a couple too many times to have any delusions of infallibility.
If only more people just had that kind of entirely reasonable perspective. I mean…..myself included, ha!I tend to have very strong opinions on things and sometimes struggle with keeping my ego in check. So especially in these days of awful online vitriol, I want to hat-tip anyone who avoids those pitfalls, and then remind myself “see, you don’t have to be a jerk!”.
Genocide?They were replaced….Get it!
The monster is the person who makes it out (of the abusive home, of the crumbling community, of whatever nightmare you want to think of) but thinks nothing of helping the others. You may call what Adelaide did a genocide, or you may call it evil, but she did what revolutionaries do when they and their people decide to take no more.The film is a reflection on the difference between the liberal who thinks only in the smallest terms and the revolutionary who wants to burn it all down and get justice. Ignorance, to a revolutionary, is not an excuse for complicity. If a revolution ever comes to this country, the fact that you and I didn’t personally hurt anybody directly won’t matter. Our ignorance of what our comfort was built on won’t matter. Will that be right? I don’t know. But it’s important to consider, and it’s childish to so quickly decide who the monster is.
Mamma told me if you roll them back too far they will get stuck and then you will look like a freak. But you won’t be able to see people’s reactions to your all-white eyeballz. So there is that.
No, but I can hear their screams.
[gigantic bong rip]Maybe the real bad guys are like… the government, man.
Hold on, lemme hit that…What if nationwide underground research facilities are the real Deep State?
No, I’m pretty sure the real monster was the friends we made along the way.
Definitely true for Dr. Frankenstein.
This is why I don’t ever make friends.Yep. This and this alone. No other reason. Nothing to see here. Please move along.
It turns out it’s Man
Saw it coming.
When you really think about it, New York City itself was kinda the villain.
I mean, the villian was basically like the fifth Beatle.
It becomes fairly clear when you read what Jordan Peele has to say about the film that it’s mostly a pile of horseshit wrapped with a pretty bow.
The movie was well *made*: some good camera work; fantastic acting by Lupita Nyong’o (and Elisabeth Moss, briefly). But the substance was really lacking. Not scary. Not particularly tense. The metaphor was both painfully obvious and also underbaked. And I’m supposed to, what, sympathize with the “real” Adelaide, who organized a dopey genocide? Sure I feel a little sorry for her—she was imprisoned and separated from her (dysfunctional-for-no-particular-reason family); but the Tether Adelaide is the one we’ve been following. She has made a good life for herself: she’s raised two kids who have turned out well, she and her husband have a loving relationship. Tether Adelaide isn’t a real character—and she’s the only Tether that speaks! The others are literally just zombies. And the zombie hunting isn’t even that satisfying. Such a shame.
One thing it definitely had was tension.
I left the movie assuming that the premise of an oppressed people below living in the literal shadow of those above was meant to illustrate class struggle, and thought the film didn’t bear that out in its actual storytelling. When Peele made it clear that wasn’t even the point, the entire thing fell apart at the seams. You’re absolutely right; if we could actually sympathize with the characters, the broad strokes wouldn’t matter as much. But it’s all we have, and what we have is a mess.
I left the movie assuming that the premise of an oppressed people below living in the literal shadow of those above was meant to illustrate class struggleMe too.
When Peele made it clear that wasn’t even the point, the entire thing fell apart at the seams.
But when did he ever make this clear? If you’re referring to something other than the Peele quotes above, I’m all ears, but “This movie’s about maybe the monster is you” is something I would take with a huge grain of salt. That positively reeks of “yeah, it was a factor but since everyone is gonna be after me for a literal explanation of Everything, I’ll have that crumb ready”. Directors who don’t want to get literal about their work toss out that kind of thing pretty routinely. I think it’s pretty obvious that the film is about class. Whether or not he handled that theme well is an entirely different question, but it’s hard to ignore.Having said that, there’s evidence he had multiple themes on his mind. But class is at the forefront.
While I would like to judge the movie as a class metaphor, none of his on-the-record comments discussing it made any mention of that whatsoever. And the inefficacy of the metaphor when applied gives me second thoughts. It’s pretty difficult to bring the full premise into anything resembling reality, regardless.
This is just a re-wording of what I said before, but I simply do not rely too much on the word of the artist when it comes to ascribing meaning to their work. Certainly there are exceptions (typically depending on both the artist and the medium), but Peele has been making films for about four years grand total and I really don’t know what to expect from him re: explicating his work in public. So I’m back to my default position.Here’s where I contradict myself (and hope it doesn’t make me look stupid!): he has explicitly stated that he has plans for a series of genre films that have social commentary embedded within. Get Out clearly tackled race. He has now followed that up with a film where there are two entirely separate……let’s not say “classes”, but versions of everyone. One version is in the free world, independent, clearly well-off and happy (to the extent that people can be happy). The other version is left behind, left below. They are forgotten and downtrodden. They rise up against the more, ahem, privileged version of society amidst a backdrop that explicitly invokes the Reagan era. I don’t care if Peele says in an interview that the movie is “really” about the plight of diseased giraffes. My eyes and ears tell me different. Having said that, I appreciate your differing viewpoint. Thanks for hearing me out with my ramblings!
This. I loved ‘Get Out’, but this was a mess of a script, flipping between jump scares and humor. The underground act stretched far too long and was profoundly unsatisfying. The ‘twist’ seemed shoehorned. Overall the movie lands close to ‘Mother!’ territory, beginning like a cracker of a story, gradually easing into what looks like a decent thriller, but ending with a meaningless bang. Followed by Internet fans claiming that there was something deep to explore and that others don’t “get it”.Still, have high hopes that Peele will learn from this and not disappoint next time.
I tend to see the mass murders who slice people up with scissors as the villains, but that’s just me.
I’m sure there’s some very fine people on both sides
Are you referring to the people who were created solely for the purpose to enslave both them and their untethered counterparts? They weren’t villains; they were victims staging a revolution. The real villains are the creators of the Tethered.
If so, the real villains aren’t present or even described in meaningful detail, and the people who die had nothing to do with any of it. I don’t think the movie even has anything to say about them beyond “shadowy people did bad things.”
Yeah, the movie doesn’t explain every tiny detail, but it’s there. It’s a story about this one particular family and one particular woman (and her Tethered counterpart) dealing with the damage caused by the unseen shadowy forces. This is neither the first or last story to feature an unseen villain who causes the victims to fight each other, so seems like a weird hill to die on. The entire point of the movie was that the misdeeds of the powers-that-be cause Us to fight each other and ourselves. That the movie didn’t explicitly state that in a moment of blatant exposition doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
And yet we got not one, but two (arguably 3 counting the newscast) moments of blatant exposition. I feel that people are purposefully ignoring the movie’s ambitions to defend how underdeveloped it is.
I actually really liked this conceit of the script. For me, it works with the movie’s broader portrayal of America – the shadowy institutional figures responsible for the Tethered (and America’s social/economic divides) of course will never see their day of judgement. The consequences of their actions will instead fall upon the public, who mistake the real perpretrators for their conditioned hate/fear of one another.
Good god, thank you. Red literally plans and executes the genocide of what’s implied to be (nearly?) every person in America.
I had this same issue with the idea that we’re supposed to treat Red and the Tethered as sympathetic, which feels pretty far-fetched considering their actions. But I don’t think the movie jumps the shark by trying to reverse our perception of them from ghouls into little orphan Annies. That idea only seems to come from Internet/social media discussion and certain critics.My take from the movie is that we can at least understand the anger, isolation, and helplessness that led to the Tethered’s bloodlust. Doesn’t make their actions justified – but you get where they’re coming from.
When I got out of the movie, I literally said “I thought we were going toward a message that ‘We all have a monster inside us’ or ‘We can all be monsters,’ but we never got it.” Now Peele says that’s the message he intended? Because I was even looking for it and never felt like the film actually communicated that.
it was a silly, fun movie. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. “most moviegoers” these days who “obsessively dissect every frame and detail for hidden clues and deeper meaning” are what I would politely call “fucking losers.”
It turns out it’s man
I haven’t seen Us yet, so I just want to say that every time I see the header picture all I can think is how Lupita Nyong’o looks like a badass Jedi in that outfit.
More pretentious bullshit from a pretentious hack. Miss me with that shit.
Tethered Adelaide did do a monstrous thing as a child but it’s hard to think of her as the “villain” of the main narrative given everything that happens and what she’s faced with; for one thing, she clearly puts herself at risk at the end out of genuine love for her son, so it’s not like she’s secretly some feral, selfish monster deep down who’s just faking normalcy. As others have pointed out in the comments here, as good rule of thumb in the “who’s the REAL villain?” game is that if one party is perpetrating a genocide, that’s a bit of a tell. But Peele has a point in that she is a sort of villain because she’s escaping justice for the wrong she did.
It’s possible Peele is playing coy with his full reasoning here since you shouldn’t always reveal everything behind the curtain, but I always took the reveal of the swap (besides the story-important reason of Red’s origin allowing her to be the only one who can speak, as well as to be the one who can finally lead a revolution) to signify that there is nothing inherently different about the Tethered than there is about us— after ending up in a loving & stable environment, she obviously was able to adjust into a normal, healthy human being within a few months or however long it took. Given that the Tethered are an obvious metaphor for the poor this is a message that only happenstance separates the privileged from the underclass. It’s the Duke brothers’ bet from Trading Places writ large.
Is there another message in the nature of the swap itself, that there must be a sort of equilibrium— if someone rises from poverty, a wealthy or middle-class person must necessarily fall? Peele’s allegory gets hazy at the edges and I don’t even necessarily agree with what he’s saying when he does make sense (and that’s not getting into what kind of mistake it was to try to find genuine in-story explanations for the Tethered, which only serve to make it seem less plausible), but there’s no denying it’s a powerful message.
I don’t think it was about an equilibrium when rising/falling from poverty. It seemed more that if you hold people down long enough they’ll get organized and fuck you up. After all, they weren’t trying to actually take their clones’ place in society and force them underground. They tried to destroy it, or at least make a big statement with the pseudo hand-across-America (kinda like when people hold hands across a road during a protest).Overall I agree with you though.
there were things I liked and things I didn’t like about it but the biggest thing I wish was simply that they’d come up with something better to do with the scissors. I know there was a Peter Pan cuts off his shadow thing allusion…but maybe it should have been more than an allusion? just stab stab stabby with them it was like…were those vegan leather fingerless gloves and who is taking care of the underground cows? So many questions.
Does anyone know why there were no guns in this movie?