The acronym I would use to describe this film is WTF. It begins with the kidnapping of an unidentified black man on a suburban street in America, but then seems to morph into a modern take on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Let me set the scene:
Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) is a clean cut attractive white woman with perfect teeth who takes Chris Washington, (Daniel Kaluuya) her attractive, black, but slightly clueless boyfriend home to the country to meet her parents. He’s nervous and a little paranoid about this mixed-race meeting, but she assures him they are not racist and they voted for Obama.
There is a lot of scene setting by this stage, and that includes the introduction of Chris’ best friend and TSA Office Rod Williams (Lil Ray Howery). By the time the couple reach the parents house, we’ve forgotten that a black man has been abducted at the beginning of the film.
Chris is introduced to some oddly over friendly white folk, and Rose’s parents have a couple of extremely strange black servants.
Missy (Catherine Keener) the mother of Rose is a hypnotist and uses the technique on Chris to get him to stop smoking.
From here on in the film gets surreal. I wont spoil it for you, but let’s just say the hypnosis leads to the discovery of what’s really going on at the Armitage home and leads to a virtual blood bath.
So what seems like a fairly straight mystery turns into a sort of horror flick with a bizarre plot that involves kidnapping and an unexpected twist into a medical science fiction horror story.
Although the plot does end up being quite surreal, thankfully the cast have enough gumption to deliver lines and performances that are not overdone or hammy. The result is a film that is funny and quite enjoyable despite jumping the shark on more than one occasion.
GET OUT
In cinemas 4th May 2017
103 Minutes
Directed by Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield, Catherine Keener
