8/10 Writer/director/producer Jordan Peele couldn’t resist releasing Nope, his follow-up to a film about doppelgangers riddled with 11:11 imagery, on a Friday the 22nd in 2022. Even his release dates are ripe with metatext.
Agua Dulce, California- OJ and Em Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) run Haywood’s Hollywood Horses Ranch. The family, who claim to be descended from the black jockey who was the subject of the first ever moving picture and the only black-owned horse handlers in Hollywood, have fallen quickly on hard times after the death of their father, Otis Sr. (Keith David), and are selling horses to stay afloat. When they discover a flying saucer that has made a home on their ranch, they decide to team up with renowned IMAX cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) and local Fry’s Electronics sales tech Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) to get “the Oprah shot,” what Em posits will be indisputable proof of alien life.
Just like Get Out and Us, Nope is full of big ideas. It’s a movie about the clash between man and nature and the nature of that relationship. For all the crazy stuff that happens in Nope, what the movie thinks is even crazieris the compulsion to point a camera at it. In Nope, getting the shot is salvation and purpose. Getting the shot is what will protect the Haywoods, somehow, and it’s the driving force for their helpers, another project for a lifelong cameraman for Holst and a distraction from a mundane day job for Torres.
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