Hear Me Out: ‘Nope’ is Jordan Peele’s masterpiece, not ‘Get Out’
Arriving with seismic pertinence, Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out became a cinematic staple of the late 2010s, with its powerful social statement and compelling horror making it a must-watch for pretty much anyone and everyone. Becoming an essential text of the contemporary civil rights conversation, as important as watching I May Destroy You or reading Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m Not Longer Talking to White People About Race, Peele’s film became more than just a movie.
Five years later, Peele’s movie made it onto Sight and Sound’s esteemed poll of the 100 greatest movies of all time, where the commercial horror thriller rubbed shoulders with the likes of Buster Keaton, Sergio Leone, Robert Bresson, Bong Joon-Ho and Stanley Kubrick. Indeed, the reputation of Get Out precedes the movie itself, working its way onto the list out of more social, rather than cinematic, merit.
Touted as a powerful filmmaker with compelling views towards social equality, Peele became a significant name in Hollywood, resulting in his follow-up film, 2019s Us, being considered inevitably inferior in comparison to his first groundbreaking work. Get Out was indeed an impressive piece of cinema, but it pigeonholed the filmmaker as someone which his third film, Nope, proved that he wasn’t.
Just like his previous two movies, Nope differs from the trend in modern filmmaking in that it’s not based on a book, graphic novel or 1970s TV series, with Peele instead conjuring the concept from his own interrogation of classic genre filmmaking. Born from the success of late 20th-century cinema, Peele goes back to the dawn of the blockbuster by analysing the tropes of decades of Hollywood, using Steven Spielberg’s Jaws as the basis for his monster flick that dissects the clouds instead of the choppy waters.
Formally tighter than his debut feature film whilst establishing a phenomenal visual style, Peele’s film sings from the same hymn sheet as Spielbergian classics whilst adding innovative riffs that synthesise the style with modern filmmaking. Telling the story of two siblings, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), who operate on the periphery of the film industry by running a ranch training horses for Hollywood movies.
Whilst trying to run their business, they are disrupted by the overbearing influence of an unidentified flying object that is stalking their land from the skies. As a result, they enlist the help of a tech expert named Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), with the trio trying to wrangle the object as if it was a horse on the ranch.
Chasing the spectacular object that would no doubt result in great financial gain for the group of characters, Peele explores the interplay between predator and prey, questioning how an individual can conquer the inconceivable. Look across to a feat of movie majesty like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and it becomes clear what Peele is trying to do, comparing the hunt of the trio to the mission of blockbuster movie-making itself, when a filmmaker sets out to capture a concept that stands beyond the limits of physical actuality.
“You are going to witness an absolute spectacle,” Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park (Steven Yeun), the owner of a western-themed amusement park, announces to a group of onlookers, a thinly veiled statement that just about hides Peele’s probing into the deeper connection between the viewer, filmmaker and the sensation of the moving image.
No doubt, 2017s Get Out rocked the audience with existential questions of its own, inquiring into generations of racial prejudice, but Nope seems layered with so much more complexity, with a far more compelling character taking the lead. An authentic individual in and of himself, as opposed to the whacky, frenetic caricature that is rife in modern cinema, Kaluuya’s OJ is shy and introverted, leaving the customer-facing side of his business up to his sister, who provides the energy for their compelling double act.
Answering as many questions as it dares to ask, Peele’s film is a complex, methodical, novel concept that takes time to establish its intricate characters whilst developing a prickly ethereal fantasy behind the scenes. Whilst Get Out introduced Peele to contemporary cinema with a loud, meaningful bang, the filmmaker’s third feature consolidates him as one of the industry’s most innovative minds, telling a story so grand yet so personal that Spielberg himself would be proud.
