Having seen “Get Out” after it opened but did not review it at the time, I have watched with interest the enthusiasm it has engendered. For the record, I want to express my views now. “Get Out” is a well made little horror film but it is the most overrated film of 2017 with respect to its being heralded as an important metaphorical statement on racism.
This is a film in which a black man becomes a victim at the hands of white racists, but that doesn’t make it more than the good little horror film that it is without raising it to the level of a sociological statement about enslavement. The ultimate assault by whites is tied to a plot as cockamamie as those that occur in typical horror films. The distinction in this case is that the victim is black, and that raises the interest level because in that sense it is different than other horror films, but “Get Out” is too slim to elevate it above the genre even though it is well-directed by Jordan Peele of the Key and Peele comedy team and also very well acted. Peele also wrote the far-fetched screenplay.
Charismatic actor Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris Washington, a photographer in New York who has become the boyfriend of Rose Armitage, portrayed by Allison Wiliams. She is white, and when she invites him to her suburban home, Chris asks whether her family knows that he is black. Off they go, and Chris has no idea of the horror and violence that await him at the Armitage estate. He gets a hint when he observes servants of color acting as if they were brain-washed slaves. Rose’s parents, Missy (Catherine Keener) and Dean (Bradley Whitford) are solicitous, and soon Chris is being hypnotized by Missy in one of the film’s harrowing scenes.
This is a spoiler, so choose to go no further if you haven’t yet seen the film, but the Armitages are engaged in a bizarre white-supremacist scheme involving brain surgery to render blacks into subservient creatures. Such a horror awaits Chris and his challenge is to get the hell out of there, not an easy task given the set-up.
The film works frighteningly on that horror genre level, but should we really see so much more in it? Many think so. Judge for yourself. A Universal Pictures release. Reviewed March 6, 2018.