Review: Nope (2022)

Nope

Rating

Director

Jordan Peele

Screenplay

Jordan Peele

Length

2h 10m

Starring

Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Steven Yeun, Wrenn Schmidt, Keith David

MPAA Rating

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Review

What does a film like Nope say about our culture? Does it reflect or condemn? Can one find deeper meaning in a picture that’s designed to entertain as much as evoke? Master filmmaker Jordan Peele examines notions of exploitation and spectacle and how our society and culture feed on and into those ideas.

For Peele’s third film, he once again takes the audience in new directions. The film stars his Get Out lead Daniel Kaluuya, who plays the son of a rancher who trains horses for use in television and film. Keith David plays his father and Keke Palmer his sister. As brother and sister take over the ranch, they discover a strange phenomenon that only seems to occur over their ranch. Random items fall from the sky while some of their horses disappear. After a few mishaps, they believe there is an alien involvement, but other events change the course of the film and their belief in what’s happening.

The film also stars Steven Yeun as the owner of a nearby theme park that trades on his fame from a short-lived television series noted for a shocking attack on his castmates by their trained chimpanzee “actor;” Michael Wincott appears as a reclusive cinematographer from whom Palmer attempts to elicit support for their endeavor; and Brandon Perea plays a Fry’s Electronics installer who helps them track the mysterious happenings. The challenge of explaining the plot is in not giving away details. It’s a fascinating and original premise unlike too many films in both the science fiction and horror genres. While the finale begins to stretch credulity, it somewhat fits into some of the themes the film is trying to present.

Peele’s film explores the rewards and risks associated with exploitation and fame. Palmer’s obsession with getting their chance alien encounter broadcast on Oprah, Yeun’s attempts to milk his stardom for all its worth, and the spectacular nature of the film’s events all feed into that notion. As usual, Peele infuses Nope with regular bits of symbolism, carefully inserted to have a brief, but pointed impact on the narrative. One of the best of these is an early scene where one of the Black characters is killed by a falling object, a nickel with the visage of Thomas Jefferson on it. It’s a subtle, but effective jab at white men who talked greatly about the inhumanity of slavery, but nevertheless partook in it. This one scene sets the tone for the rest of the film and it doesn’t disappoint.

In spite of society’s slow acceptance and extension of rights to racial minorities, it has long been fascinated with Black entertainers. From early minstrel shows to the “Black” sound in music to the modern exploitation of Black sports figures in American football and Basketball, our culture is built on the backs of society’s most vulnerable individuals. Nope wants the audience to feel that opportunism to the very core. The scenes of the film extrapolate on those concepts and obliquely act as a castigation of them. This is a film full of symbolic exhortations, which is as much a part of the goals of science-fiction as it is essential to Peele’s cinematic oeuvre.