Lupita Nyong’o in Us

Is there one particular scene you were watching or filming that made you realize it was something you had never seen before? “I think just having a black family at the center of the horror film is new… So there was a refreshment with that, but also just the conceit of them being the all-American family… And I love setting up that norm and what that does for other paradigms — what is normal and what is American — and then just totally devastating it with the nightmare of the untethering” (Nyong'o; emphasis added). In this brief Entertainment Weekly interview, Lupita Nyong'o forewarned us with a slight nod to the harrowing message that Peele would confront us with in Us: that both the internal and external demons we suppress will return for reckoning, specifically our inner demons/unfaced fears and the atrocities committed against the Other. Nyong'o’s performance in Us is the clearest display of Jordan Peele’s vision for this film, but her most important scenes to the advancement of the plot and conveyance of the film’s themes are her two extended interactions with her tethered self: the break-in scene and the climactic fight scene. In every second that Nyong'o shares the screen with herself, we see facial expressions, sound cues, and body movements that intensify the tension we sense between her characters. The ways Nyong'o moves and interacts with the setting, engages in dialogue, and commands scenes are important harbingers of upcoming plot advancements, her mental and emotional state, and the ultimate plot twist. Us is probably the most controversial Peele feature in terms of debating its central message; assuming the themes of an unsatisfied underclass seeking vengeance on their oppressive upper-class opposites, as well as a reckoning with the manifestations of one’s greatest fears and inner demons, Nyong'o’s performance offers the most potent look into how these opposing forces interact, specifically when they’re in conflict with one another, vis a vis her physicality (especially her eyes), her talent, and her persona. 

Each of the three times Red and Adelaide shared the screen, Red whistled “Itsy Bitsy Spider” with the second being the break-in scene. The audience knows that this sound cue signals Red’s appearance yet she approaches in a slow, tense manner that establishes the mood of her physicality for the rest of the movie. As the physical manifestation of both Addy’s inner monster and her greatest fears, Red’s gait is different from Addy’s in that it is “skittery” (to use the actress’ language) while also clearly methodical whereas Addy’s gait is normally more panicked but tense; however, it is also similar to Red’s gait in that they both command the screen/scene whenever walking to set and reestablish the overall mood of the film: tense and eerie. This confrontation of Nyong'o’s opposing characters makes their two interactive scenes so chaotic because, with diametrically opposed personalities and physicalities, they’re constantly changing the beat of the scene to different speeds and conveying different thoughts, messages, and emotions. During the break-in, as the camera is panning between the two families when they’re all sitting in the living room, Nyong'o’s characters consistently command the screen as well as the emotions of their respective kin. Even though the thoughts and emotions they’re conveying- confusion, fear, and panic from Addy but determination, anger, and sorrow from Red- are conflicting, making it difficult to “pick a side” per se, Red isn’t necessarily a villain or a monster; she is presented that way because of what she represents. On the one hand, she represents Addy’s most primal behaviors and thought processes, while on the other she has also been monstered by the conditions she’s been subjected to, representing the underclass and the Others. With this in mind, and knowing that Addy represents the opposite, the scene in the living room following the break-in is extremely chaotic and uneasy, with Addy speeding up the beat to match her panicked state and fear for her and her family’s lives. At the same time, Red slows the beat down so that she can “take [her] time” making the Wilsons suffer the way she’s had to. 

In the last half hour, Red does take her time, flipping the script and forcing Addy to come to her this time. Each previous confrontation of these characters positioned Red as the predator, either (before the twist is revealed) waiting for her prey in the Hall of Mirrors or stalking her back to her house. This time, Nyong'o embodies the predator as Addy, wearing blood-spattered clothes, wielding a fireplace stoker, and filled with unrestrained rage. This scene is a culmination of the cruces of Peele’s messages: forcing the purposely unseen into the light. How does this movie lend itself into conversations around sociopolitical issues? “Jordan’s exploring this notion that right now we’re preoccupied globally with the other, the monster that is the other: the other culture, the other country… And what about the monster that sometimes comes in the shape of the man in the mirror and the darkness that we humans are prone to and quite naturally inhabit…” (Nyong'o). Peele is shining a light on that darkness, and it is not Red, it is Addy. Addy’s suburban mom façade is chipped away until we see the predator who lurks around stalking her prey with literal blood coating her hands, whose eyes are widened and dilated for minutes on end, who is so angry that she can barely stand when swinging her weapon or speak, and who finally pierces Red in the heart and snaps her neck. After which, she emits the same chilling laugh that Red did in the living room of their beach house. 

Nyong'o performed the way she did because she and Peele are forcing the audience to reckon with the aforementioned man in the mirror. If the belief is that we too often (willfully) ignore the monsters within ourselves in favor of projecting those insecurities, fears, and failings onto the Others, then Nyong'o’s performance is forcing us to acknowledge these failings and this sub/conscious projection. In every scene that Red is in, she commandeers: when Addy finds her in the tunnel, she asks where Jason is, but Red completely ignores her and begins her second monologue. Not only does she consistently force the audience to hear and understand her perspective, but she’s also forcing us to acknowledge all the people we’ve ignored and discarded. She’s the only character with a monologue- two total- and during both of them her face took up the majority of the screen. In darker scenes, or ones where she is not in the foreground, we often at least still see her eyes. Even when we’re not paying mind to our inner demons, our primal thoughts, or the people we’ve systematically discarded, they’re always there paying mind to us, watching us. That is the message Nyong'o’s performance conveys.

Peele admitted to Nyong’o that he wrote the character with her in mind; she was a star by this time, having been years after her Oscar win and while concurrently filming for Black Panther. This is demonstrated in how heavily the plot relies on Nyong’o’s characters, establishing the connection between the physicality, emotions, and mindset of her characters and the overall mood and theme of the film. Peele assumed his audience to be knowledged enough to be aware of Nyong’o’s mythology, and it paid off when it was proved that her persona manifested itself into the talent that was translated onto the screen. It could’ve also influenced my analysis of the part, but because Peele created the part with Nyong’o in mind, I believe that’s the writer and actor’s intention.