Nope

Grade: B+

I’ve mentioned before that I think Jordan Peele works with a cookie cutter. That’s not usually used as a compliment. What I mean is he has made his own design. He’s taken what has worked for numerous directors before him, and come up with his own concoction. Nope, opening today, is his third film as writer/director. I liked his first (Get Out). I liked his second (Us) even better. I liked Nope almost as much. Peele creates creepy thrillers, but we know by now from the way he works, that there’s usually more to it. There’s often a thoughtful socio-political allegory bubbling beneath the surface. If there is one in Nope, I didn’t pick up on it.

The title is well-used but not over-used in this movie. You will see this film and think the word more than you hear it. Fans have speculated that it’s an acronym for something I won’t spoil, but it’s on an interview video on IMDb if you want to see it. Nope’s trailer, posters, and press information have done a tremendous job of not revealing too much.

Nope reunites Peele with Daniel Kaluuya (from Get Out), who stars as OJ Haywood, the son of a late well-known animal wrangler for movies and TV shows. The father is briefly in the movie, played by Keith David – nice to see him again. OJ and his sister Emerald own a ranch in a gulch in inland California, where unusual things happen at night when the power goes out. And it often does go out, for no reason. When purchasing security cameras in the hopes they can get to the bottom of what’s happening, the employee at Fry’s Electronics – who is a bit of a UFO/alien buff – becomes curious and interested, and invites himself to tag along and help. Brandon Perea plays him, in one of several colorful supporting performances. The siblings want filmed proof of whatever might be out there, so they call upon one of their connections in the movie industry (Michael Wincott, whose every syllable sounds monumental and ominous) to use his best equipment to capture all this.

There’s a humorous and interesting dichotomy taking place with these characters’ motivations. They want that perfect film, that perfect shot. And, oh yeah, they also fear for their lives and want to defeat this thing that comes from the sky. Seeing them be simultaneously passionate about both is one of Nope’s pleasures. Keke Palmer’s movie-stealing performance is star-making. She and Kaluuya as the siblings have impeccable chemistry and banter. Steven Yeun was nominated for an Oscar for Minari the same year Kaluuya won his for Judas and the Black Messiah. He turns up here, too, as a former child star who is now an owner/performer of a modest fair-type park near the Haywood ranch.

Nope’s last half hour had the best filmmaking I’ve seen all year. It was fun, funny, hip, engaging, exciting, and all the production values were banging on every cylinder to give me everything I want in a movie. The locations, as you can imagine, are stunning. The sound, and sometimes lack of sound, is used to great effect. Peele, like M. Night Shyamalan, is becoming a master at knowing how to make silence just as scary as any noise.

Nope left me with some questions. What did the subplot/backstory with the monkey have to do with anything? The woman with the pink veil: why did her face look like that? Was the person on the horse in the final shots a hallucination, or did they somehow survive? But even if you don’t always know the how or why of the plot, you can at least appreciate individual scenes, much like a David Lynch film. The last sequence had big, broad cinematic strokes, with some Western flourishes on the score that made me think of the bombast of Quentin Tarantino. Peele, now three movies in, has established with Nope that he is a director that will make you lean in with interest, and has taken influence from some of the best. See what I mean about the cookie cutter?

Grade: B+