Ever since the movie Get Out opened last February, people have been talking. Is this edgy horror story a vision of blacks’ worst nightmares? Or, are whites more disturbed by the social satire? Comedian/ writer/ director Jordan Peele’s smart movie puts this discourse on the table. For anyone still in the dark, the plot goes like this: Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams star as a mixed race couple. William’s Rose, maybe named for Rosemary’s Baby, brings her boyfriend Chris (Kaluuya) to meet the parents, in a country house deep in the woods. Let’s just say, deer crossing the road are not the only casualty. Part Stepford Wives, part Night of the Living Dead, the scariest movie of the year features faces frozen in civility, and the sinister sound of a spoon tapping a teacup.

At lunch last week at Ristorante Lincoln, on a panel with his stars and producers, Jordan Peele spoke about the making of this film, which took 23 days. Even though Daniel Kaluuya is British (origins Uganda), and Peele was making a distinctly American movie, he said, “the disease of racism comes from the same place.” Explained Kaluuya, “I came from a working class background, but British police roughed me up for being a drug dealer.” In the film’s image of falling through space, the so-called “sunken place” serves as a metaphor for prison. In the end, a police car arrives at a scene of violence, and while the given experience of blacks in such circumstance would lead you to one conclusion, Peele’s ending allows him to keep that in the viewer’s imagination—while his protagonist “gets out.”

Next up for the very talented Peele: Spike Lee is shooting Black Klansman, from Ron Stallworth’s autobiography, which he is producing. As in Hidden Figures, he said, “You’re going to say, where has this story been?”

Regina Weinreich

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