All That Glitters

Conditions: Fairly Pleasant

Film Review: Get Out

Apparently the directing debut from comedian Jordan Peele, this film has a very assured and steady hand upon it.  It tells the tale of Chris, a black man with a very white girlfriend, as the two are about to visit her parents at their estate in upstate New York.  He understandably is a bit nervous about it all but is reassured by Rose that it'll be fine.  "My father loved Barack Obama" she gushes.  But when he arrives he finds that they've shown up on the same weekend as some kind of big local gathering, where a bunch of well to do white folks have all come round for some kind of party.

To give too much away would be wrong, but gradually the tones and underlying threats start to come to the surface, and Chris becomes more and more assured that something is not right.  But as he becomes more weirded out with the two staff that work there, both acting decidedly odd, and his phone that keeps getting unplugged, and that he really doesn't have anyone to talk to, and that Rose's brother is definitely two sandwiches short of a picnic, the more intriguing the setup becomes.

It's a delightful slow burn of a thriller, where a lot of the time you're trying to separate the uneasiness Chris must feel as a black man amongst a lot of white strangers, and the uneasiness he's getting from the creepy stuff that seems to be building up.  And rest assured the ending is terrific, violent and a bit fulfilling.  It's a great debut from Peele, who shows a mastery of tone and knowing how to establish characters to drive the plot.  I look forward to what he does next.  Four and a half Bingo cards out of five.

- Peace out