Director
Jordan Peele
(GET OUT, US)

Starring
Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun

Jordan Peele has quickly become one of the ‘it’ directors of Hollywood since his debut film Get Out wowed audiences back in 2017. Known for his thought provoking, social narratives it’s no surprise that his latest feature has followed this trend. It seems though that this time around, he might be pushing the cerebral boundaries a little too far. I know I wasn’t the only one walking out of the cinema asking myself ‘Did I get it?’ and the resounding answer being ‘NOPE’. After a little post-screening googling (I make a point not to know too much about a film before viewing), the premise and little nods throughout the film became a lot clearer, but I can’t help but ask whether or not I should have to work that hard afterwards?

Setting the bar as highly as he did with Get Out, I can’t help but feel that Peele is succumbing to the pressure to have every film hit those same heights. There appears to be some parallels with another acclaimed director in this thriller/horror/sci-fi realm in M. Night Shyamalan, who blew audiences away with The Sixth Sense, only to have his successive films fail to wow in the same way. Nope doesn’t even seem to match up to ‘Signs’ and sadly falls more the way of ‘The Happening’. This isn’t to say however that Nope doesn’t have redeeming qualities.

The premise of the film is certainly interesting; OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) is a Hollywood horse trainer, running the family business that’s put horses in movies for generations. When he starts to notice strange things happening to his horses he realises that something is stalking his land from above. Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) plays a former child actor turned theme park operator trying to cash in on the same predatory UFO. With a well-balanced ensemble, each trying to find fame and validation from their extraterrestrial encounter, it’s a very wild ride.  The film is brilliantly shot and the strange UFO that kind of resembles a stingray for most of the film, before morphing into a giant jellyfish, definitely gives us something we haven’t seen before. The problems with Nope certainly aren’t with the performances or the filming, it’s just the convoluted ways in which Peele is trying to make his commentary on fame and its societal impact. There are a number of plot holes that either aren’t addressed, or if they are, they’re far too clever to be obvious to me. I’d like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, but a lot of the symbolism here went over my head at first viewing, and a number of people around me were verbalising the same thing. Sometimes that’s a great thing in cinema, films that really make you think can be brilliant, especially when they have something important to say (which was certainly the case in Get Out). But I don’t think the message of Nope really warrants the alienation (pardon the pun) of a large part of its audience just for the sake of seeming intelligent.

Nope is in cinemas now.