“No?” Yes!
Jordan Peele’s latest is a departure from “Get Out” and “Us,” though it’s also a horror flick with a pithy title. The film it most resembles may be M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs,” in which the terror was also initiated by an alien presence, but what it really reminded me of, in the way it combines spectacle and emotional investment, it’s Steven Spielberg at his best. . Peele even includes a (bloody) visual nod to the finger scene in “ET” and riffs on the catchphrase from the Spielberg-produced “Poltergeist.”
“No” recalls the beginnings of the film industry with its protagonists, a brother and sister who train horses for Hollywood. Taciturn OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and lively Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) are descendants of the actor/rider who appears in the first film, made in 1878. In a way, the action of “No” represents the Haywoods’ attempt to achieve the glory that their unknown ancestor never received.
“We don’t have any more problems,” his father says at the beginning. It’s a bad idea to say something like that in a horror movie, and soon the Haywoods are in a lot of trouble, including an alien ship hovering over their ranch. Sometimes it looks like a mushroom and sometimes like a dress designed by Issey Miyake, it hides in a cloud and occasionally sucks humans and animals (ie “food”). The Haywoods’ knowledge of their horses is included in their attempts to deal with the alien in a film whose subtext is that the animals were not put here for our use or entertainment.
As in “Get Out” and “Us,” Peele likes to make sure we know he’s always in control. Many scenes, including the opening, on the set of a 90s sitcom where something terrible happens, are initially puzzling, but their meaning becomes apparent a little later. It’s as if Peele, who has a keen sense of what to show and when to show it, is teasing us: “You might think you know what’s going on, but don’t get ahead of yourself. It will be revealed. in time.”
As a result, you will have to pay close attention. You’ll have to trust Peele to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. And you’ll have to give it some wiggle room, especially with the horrifying ’90s sitcom stuff that’s only loosely connected to everything else.
The friend who went with me suggested that these connections might become clearer on a second viewing, and I bet he’s right. Peele is a student of how movies affect us, and “No” is full of things that make a movie lover’s heart race: a Kaluuya-on-a-horse moment that’s vintage Sergio Leone. Another riding scene when Michael Abels music comes on as “How the West Was Won”. And the Spielberg-y shift that happens when the characters, who have felt hopeless in the face of a cruel threat, finally go into problem-solving mode.
It’s an exciting scene in a movie that has quite a few. If you go this weekend, don’t be surprised if you see me there.
‘No’
***1/2 of 4 stars
Rating: R for language and violence.
Where: Theaters in the area.
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