Review: “Get Out” – ‘A’/’A+’

Disclaimer(?): I am a Black guy, probably 10 years older than the lead male character of ‘Get Out’. The only women I’ve been lucky to date have been white. My first date was when I was 28, roughly the age that I picture the main character.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has a wrestler named Bray Wyatt, a cult-leader, “False Prophet”-type character. After most of his video promo, Wyatt, moving close to the camera, whispers: “Run!”.

“Run!” should be the subtitle of ‘Get Out’: it should have been the main action of a few characters… and YOU need to run out and see this creepy, funny (at moments), outstanding movie.

The basic plot of this movie: Chris (pictured above), a late-20’s guy, and his mid-to-late 20’s girlfriend, Rose, (pictured below), are about to head to her parents’ house (Dean and Missy) for the weekend; this is the “meet the parents for the first time” point. The parents live on a beautifully tended, large estate, on the shores of a lake, with few neighbors close by.

Rose hasn’t told Dean and Missy that Chris is black.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, nothing, for the first 7-10 minutes. 

Jordan Peele did an outstanding job with this movie, blending moments of awkwardness, satirical humor, discomfort, and flat-out horror, within the themes of race, bi-racial dating, and realism. And there is a LOT of realism in this movie. There were at least 6 different moments in the first half of that movie where I thought to myself: “I’ve felt like that!”, “I remember something happening like this…!”. or “That happened to me!”

SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW

(For example:  without spoiling too much of the scene, Chris and Rose have an accident (Rose was driving). The police showed up, took a little bit of info… then asked for *Chris’s* license. After some tense moments between Rose and the officer, regarding racial profiling, Chris gave his license, the officer checked it out, then drove off. That happened to me, except it was a random pullover)

(Another example, with minimal spoilers: Chris meets the parents, then meets a lot of the parents’ friends. He is constantly asked “racially tinted” questions and profiled, based on colors and stereotypes, including a humorous/VERY awkward remark from a woman, asking Rose: “is it true?”, looking at Chris’s nether regions. I know of friends that have had scenarios similar to that happen to them. Nothing that blatant happened when I met the parents on 2 of the 3 occasions – those scenes felt like Peele overemphasizing and pointing out things that happen during the “meet the parents” stage – but there were a couple of “awkward” moments. We all laughed about it afterwards, and the parents turned into two of the better friendships I ever had; their daughter is one of my closest and best friends to this day.)

The awkwardness of Chris at the parents’ house, plus the guy in the opening scene of the movie, are just two occasions of the realism, blended with a little humor and some “what the F is going on here?” The horror/creepiness starts, in my opinion, with the groundskeeper and the house servant. The trailers do not do justice to just how creepy both of them are, especially Georgina (house servant). Dean and Missy are your typical parents, happy to see their daughter and glad to finally meet the boyfriend (or girlfriend). They both are friendly and smile a lot. But Dean… there’s an air of ‘restrained judgement’ about him and his questions. And Missy… her smile felt like something I read in a Stephen King book, once: “it felt like there were two people superimposed together” (or something like that). That’s a testament to both actors who played the characters: maybe they like Chris’s personality but haven’t quite made up their minds about him being black? You will have to watch to find out.

‘Get Out’ gets an ‘A+’ on mood and realism. The music is a good mix of Blues, an African-style singing (I don’t know the language), and a tinge of Rap, courtesy of Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” opening the movie. The mood will keep you on edge and guessing throughout the movie, with some humor thrown in (e.g: the Police Station scene and the “explanation”). The movie, as a whole is an ‘A’. The ending was definitely unexpected but the final few scenes felt… incomplete? That is the only (very) minor blemish on what, to me, is a 5-star movie. Get out and see it before it leaves the theater and you have to wait to get it on DVD or Blu-Ray. You will not be disappointed; if you are, for some reason… I don’t know what to tell you.