NOPE (July 2022)

    

NOPE

(July 2022)

“I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”

--Nahum 3:6

“What if I told you… that in about an hour… you’ll leave here different?”

Just as Us was a different cinematic animal than Get Out, so is Jordan Peele's latest, Nope, a different beast, perhaps even more so.

It isn't the same kind of “social thriller” Get Out and Us most definitely were.

His assertions regarding “the big summer blockbuster spectacle film” and “the violence of attention”? Well, he rather effectively addresses those with Nope…

“Who is gonna go down there and get the star out of his trailer?”

Even more than his two previous films, Peele’s Nope asks its audience to enter it knowing as little as possible and with the least amount of preconceived notions.

Which, admittedly, could be a big ask for some simply because Get Out and Us were so very clearly about Something.

Well, Nope is about Something too, just not in the same way…

Or, you could look at it as Peele choosing to interrogate that Something in a different, more subtle way than his previous efforts.

“We don’t deserve the impossible.”

So let’s just talk about that cast instead, shall we?

Not only do we get some strong, noteworthy performances from the three top billers, Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer (as the Haywood siblings) and Steven Yeun, but the fine character writing by Peele extends even to Brandon Perea’s lovelorn retail jockey, Angel, and to Michael Wincott’s “legendary cinematographer,” Antlers Holst (particularly to the latter).

And speaking of that cast, we also get familiar ¡Qué horror! face Osgood Perkins*, sadly appearing all too briefly as Fynn Bachman.

We even get Donna Mills (Knots Landing, yo!) in the package!

“How exquisitely stupid is that?”

So just trust in the Peele, and go into Nope with as blank a slate as possible, and simply allow yourself to be dazzled by a genre virtuoso who very clearly levels up his filmmaking craft with his latest…

“Nobody f*cks with Haywood, b!tch! Nobody! You hear me?!”

* Peele and Perkins previously worked together on The Twilight Zone’s “You Might Also Like”.

Perkins, of course, has also appeared ‘round these parts for The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

(I really should get around to catching up on Gretel & Hansel…)

(Nope key art courtesy of impawards.com & bloody-disgusting.com)