What's a bad miracle?

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2022

#9 :  Nope

A fresh, original vision from Jordan Peele is always an instant ‘Yep’. But even by his standards, Nope feels special – a step-up in scope from Get Out and Us, combining his horror instincts with sci-fi spectacle for a film that interrogates our desire for (and exploitation of) the spectacular. If that sounds dry, Peele grounds his sometimes abstract thematic explorations in a thrilling, scary alien-encounter blockbuster with stellar setpieces – that nightmarish ‘Gordy’s Home’ sitcom (the key to the film’s central preoccupations), the Jupiter’s Claim show, the mid-way blood gush, that thunderous final ride… Threading it all together is Daniel Kaluuya’s low-key but nuanced turn as the grieving OJ, leaving plenty of room for Keke Palmer to steal the show as his livewire sister Emerald, intent on claiming their place in history by capturing the extraterrestrial phenomenon on camera. Nope is a Spielbergian blend of horror and wonder that reveals itself anew on every rewatch. Its stunningly beautiful final reel dares you to look away. Spoiler: you won’t.

Horror isn't really my thing, but I did like Get Out - it was a clever concept with an excellent central performance from Daniel Kaluuya (that man has some classy films on his CV - Sicario, Black Panther, Widows, Queen & Slim, Judas & The Black Messiah and, errr, Johnny English Reborn) so I'm looking forward to more of the same from this.

Well, it has a very peculiar beginning - a chimpanzee on the set of a sitcom surrounded by bodies, which you know may or may not be explained later.  And then a character is killed by unknown objects falling from the sky.  OK...

And things don't get to make a lot more sense as the film progresses but they're enjoyably nonsensical and you're given the impression that aliens may be involved and we follow OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) try to restore their fortunes by capturing evidence of said aliens.  And well, basically a load of weird shit happens.

And whilst I got the general gist of things, I have to admit that for large portions of the film I didn't have the faintest idea what was going on.  In the middle, I also had a sneaking suspicion the film wasn't entirely sure itself but it did at least come up with an effective and impressive (if not exactly believable) ending.

A lot of it isn't really horror - it's more slightly creepy suspense, but it's surprising how suspenseful the electricity going off can be, even if it's sometimes just because someone's turned it off!  Having said that, some of the set pieces are definitely more horror based but there's also a lot of other elements in there, with a definitely western feel to the ending.

It has some absolutely beautiful shots in it - it doesn't hurt that the landscape is incredibly cinematic, but you still have to know how to use it and Jordan most definitely does, with the use of the tube men being particularly effective.  He also has quite the imagination to come up with all these elements and link them together with there being definite Tarantinoesque elements to this - there really aren't many films that directly quote Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" song!

It's well also well acted - Daniel is indeed very understated in this with him just about selling his chronic lack of confidence (which doesn't feel like something he overly suffers from in real life) and Keke contrasts with him nicely as his sparky sister.  Stephen Yeun makes his third appearance in this blog here and he does his usual effective job (he's also in something I'm watching at the minute, so we'll be seeing him again soon).  I'm also going to call out Michael Wincott and Brandon Perea for both doing a good job, even if I wasn't entirely sure what they were there for a lot of the time.

So, did I like it?  Well, I didn't NOT like it and there's certainly a lot to like about it - but the whole "not having a clue what's going on" thing was a bit grating.  Reading the plot on Wikipedia did clear a few things up in terms of what happened - amusingly the critical review section suggests a million different theories as to why they happened.  One review I read described Peele as an "it means what you think it means" film-maker and I'm happy enough with that point of view except for the fact that I've no idea what I think this meant.  

Whatever the meaning though, it is absolutely gorgeous to look at and I don't feel I wasted my time on it - but I'm not sure I can whole-heartedly recommend it to everyone.  But if you fancy it, at time of writing it's available to stream on Sky or to rent in all the usual places.

#10 - A terrible write-up
#4 - A dreadful waste of three hours