OPINION | REVIEW: Jordan Peele’s third film, ‘Nope,’ is his most audacious

Cloud cover

Semi-estranged siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em (Keke Palmer) are just trying to keep the family horse ranch viable when some strange doings threaten their world in Jordan Peele's sci-fi horror film (and social satires) "Nope."
Semi-estranged siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em (Keke Palmer) are just trying to keep the family horse ranch viable when some strange doings threaten their world in Jordan Peele's sci-fi horror film (and social satires) "Nope."

You couldn't blame Jordan Peele if, after releasing a pair of universally acclaimed films -- the first, "Get Out," an instant classic; and the second, "Us," wildly inventive, socially relevant, and bloody scary -- he got a bit self-conscious about his work. Remember, M. Night Shyamalan was once a promising young director, but after "The Sixth Sense" became such a massive hit, he got stuck in a kind of cinematic purgatory, having to try and make movies with equally twisty endings, until his work had contorted into a pretzeled ouroboros.

Peele, however, seems to have no such qualms. His third film, "Nope," a peculiar mash-up of UFO -- sorry, UAP ("Unidentified Aerial Phenomena") -- story, monster movie, pop-culture satire, and anti-exploitation commentary, feels as loose and freewheeling as an untethered ponytail on a windy day.

Funny thing, that wind. In various ways, Peele uses this elemental force as an atmospheric driver for the narrative. Set on a remote horse ranch in a valley some ways out from L.A., the wind is ever-present: a breeze setting off dust from the prairie; gusts making a lineup of tall, primary colored AirDancers gyrate; and the raging dust storms set off by the mysterious object in the sky that hovers over the ranch, hidden behind a camouflaging cloud.

THE RANCH

The ranch, Haywood's Hollywood Horses, to be precise, is run by OJ (Daniel Kaluuya), the son of the site's founder, Otis (Keith David), killed one morning by a freak shower of metal objects suddenly bursting from the sky above them. Since then, things haven't been going well. The movie shoots, once the lifeblood of the place, have all but dried up, forcing OJ to sell some of his father's beloved horses to the nearby amusement park, Jupiter's Plain, run by Ricky Park (Steven Yeun), a former child star, now selling his faintly lingering fame to tourists looking for a cheesy trip to the Old West.

OJ doesn't get a lot of support from his younger sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), an aspiring multi-hyphenate writer/actor/director, who doesn't particularly want anything to do with the ranch and the kind of isolated living that her more introverted brother seems to prefer. However, when she sees the hovering object, appearing in the sky as a saucer, freaking the horses out of their minds, she instantly gloms onto the idea of capturing it on video, and making a fortune for the both of them, selling the "proof" of extraterrestrial life.

The pair enlist the aid of a young tech specialist with frosted tips named Angel (Brandon Perea), to install remote cameras over the property, in hopes of getting clear images of the object, but the "anti-electric field" it generates keeps thwarting their effort. Enter Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), a renowned cinematographer, who has developed a hand-cranked camera that requires no electricity to run, giving him an opportunity to film something previously assumed to be impossible to capture on celluloid.

INTERPLAYING ELEMENTS

It being a Peele film, there are various other elements interplaying with the narrative. The movie actually begins on the set of a late '90s TV sitcom called "Gordy's House" -- a dimwitted show about a family who adopts a chimp -- just after the chimp has suddenly gone rogue and starts tearing into its co-stars live on set, beating the actor who plays his "father" to a bloody pulp, and terrifying young Ricky Park, who played the other adopted member of the family.

Just what Peele is getting at can't be fully dissected without giving away some of the film's oddball twists and turns, but he's content to let these two elements juxtapose themselves without tying everything in too neat of a box. Most of the film plays things this way, allowing the audience to decide for themselves what, if anything, links these bits and pieces together. Suffice it to say, there is a correlation between these elements, involving the unbridled release of nature from humans' tightly held grip and striking out against their own commodification, a point Peele also alludes to in the film's biblical epigraph, from Nahum 3:6, "I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle." Not everything, it turns out, is so willing to allow their exploitation.

Peele is also highly skilled at using just the right detritus of Americana to make his vision feel specific and relevant: nickels, three-camera sitcoms, Hot Cheetos, Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" (in a particularly inspired usage), the lyrics to "The Purple People Eater," etc. He so populates the world with these sorts of artifacts, no matter how extraordinary the rest of the narrative may be, it remains tethered to the (very well) known pop-cultured world. In this way, he speaks to his audience not from up on high, the icy auteur imparting his difficult wisdom to the masses, but hanging out with the rest of us shlumps, hopelessly caught up in the painfully ordinary ephemera of our everyday lives.

INTO THE PSYCHE

That's not to suggest Peele's vision is without artistry. One scene, early on, in which OJ goes out to retrieve a skittish horse who has gone on the run from his pen, is set during a bright, moonlit night, the shadowy blues of the evening pallor lighting up the deserted surroundings, shrouding the nearby mountains in a fitful sort of gloom. It's quiet to the point of rectitude, but stricken with a carefully etched sense of foreboding. Even well lighted, the night is filled with its mysteries. One gets the sense of the place, why a vaguely introverted man like OJ would take solace in its stillness, but also the potential danger behind every shadow (or, in this case, cloud).

Whether all the elements come together in a tightly cohesive package seems beside the point, and, possibly, something Peele, whose attention to minor details going full circle in his narratives paid off handsomely in "Get Out," was actually working to avoid. It's the kind of film where loose ends, and visible unsightlinesses are part of the process, allowing the writer/director the creative freedom to engage with his muse without having to get caught up in the preciousness of perfection. Many such revered artists follow up their heralded triumph by playing it too safe, giving the crowd much of what worked previously, for fear of losing their heightened stature. Here, Peele seems to be showing us the way around that creative pitfall: Have the guts and conviction to get deeper into your psyche, and let it rip.


‘Nope’

88 Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Barbie Ferreira, Keith David, Brandon Perea, Donna Mills, Oz Perkins

Director: Jordan Peele

Rating: R

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Playing theatrically

 



Upcoming Events