Nope

 

Jordan Peele’s approach to story and storytelling is distinctly outré, startling and fresh. Perhaps his biracialism lends him and his films both a cultural specificity and wider social application.

Get Out was about racial annihilation AND spiritual predation. Us was about intra-racial class distinctions AND social stratification. Both told through the lens of sci-fi / speculative fiction.

Peele’s latest film, Nope, is a deliberately paced and seductive space invasion tale set against a background of horse wrangling. Daniel Kaluuya stars as O.J., the son of the only Black horse trainer for Hollywood (Keith David). When his father is killed during a strange rain storm, O.J. and his rootless sister, Em (a delightful Keke Palmer) take over the operation just as the number of strange events around their ranch increases. They eventually figure the source of the peculiar happenings is hiding behind a stationary cloud bank.

With the help of an appliance store skywatcher (Brandon Perea) they prepare to capture the alien (which looks like a Christo installation) on tape and sell the revelation to the highest bidder (Oprah?). The film is about how wrong things go for the trio.

Peele is a thoughtful and insightful creator with a trenchant wit; all of these qualities are woven into Nope, a wonderfully peculiar and puzzling exercise.