2019, d. Jordan Peele - Crave
Jordan Peele returns with another retro-styled creep fest, about a family terrorized by, seemingly, other-dimensional doppelgangers.
We begin in the mid-80's at a Californian boardwalk carnival. A young girl, Adelaide, wanders off from her arguing parents into an isolated fun house. In the room of mirrors she encounters herself and is traumatized for a very long time.
In present day Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and her family have come to California to that same carnival, only for Adelaide to experience a creeping unease upon being in the area. Later that night at the vacation cottage, they spy quartet standing at the end of their driveway. Peele teases out nothing, and in no time this family of red jumpsuits have descended upon the house and overtaken their prey. These people are visually identical, but mostly mute, except for Adelaide's double who speaks with a pained rasp.
But the family, bruised and battered, manage to escape, only to find the world has started to become overrun by red jumpsuits. The immediate world has descended into chaos, with each doppleganger's mission seeming to be to murder their opposite then join a "Hands Across America"-like lineup. Escape seems impossible.
Eventually Adelaide winds up in the Fun House again, discovering a deep dark tunnel which reveals the truth about the reality of the dopplegangers, and the entire film falls apart. Peele reaches for a grounded, science-gone-wrong explanation which makes the conceit so much harder to believe than had it been an alternate reality/mirror universe that these people came from. It's tonally only a soundtrack spin and a few punch ups away from being an extended Key and Peele comedy sketch.
The performances in this are delightful, with Clark Duke, Elizabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker and all the younger actors putting in entertaining turns as both the normal character and their oddball doubles. But it's not enough to save the film from a very nonsensical reveal. Peele seemed to lose his touch for tension-building in this one, as I didn't find it frightening, creepy, or intense. I found it more silly and amusing, lacking any cultural narrative or bite like Get Out had.
(Toast's take)
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