Nope (2022)
Since his horror debut with 2017’s Get Out, Jordan Peele has proven himself again and again to be an incredibly gifted writer and director, one who’s brimming with love and knowledge of the horror genre — so much so that, upon release, his films immediately beget articles entirely dedicated to breaking down horror references and Easter Eggs. “Nope,” as L.A.-based writer Quinci Legardye points out, is no different.
That stuff’s fun, of course, but it’s not what we do here. Here, we Dissect, we Judge, we publish other people’s creepy Fables, and we sell things out of a Cabinet. Today, we’re feeling Judgy, so get ready to learn how much we loved Nope and why we loved it. But don’t get ready for spoilers, because there aren’t any here. Just lots of Judgy Judgments.
Gordy’s Home, the ‘90s sitcom Jordan Peele invented for Nope, featured a chimpanzee named Gordy who one day went on a rampage on set, killing and injuring his costars.
Nope‘s plot is structured in a way that's meant to confuse at first, with its chapter titles (named for the animals featured in the film), its glimpses into one character’s traumatic past, and its slow, simmering buildup. As a result, some viewers and reviewers even complain that the narrative’s just a pile of disconnected threads, but keen-eyed viewers will find that the movie rewards them for paying close attention — and not just with the Easter Eggs that so many people on the internet chase after like Pokémon. In fact, many of the most satisfying parts of the film come just from trying to work out what the hell’s actually going on.
The story opens with two separate and distinct tragedies: a chimp-related massacre on the set of a sitcom called Gordy’s Home, and a father’s confounding and quietly horrific death at Haywood Ranch. Right off the bat, we’re reminded that other animals — even trained ones — are unpredictable and easily spooked (not a great combination for a TV or film set), and right off the bat, it’s clear that there’s something ominous in them clouds.
From there, we see our main character OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) struggling to keep the Haywood family business afloat by training horses and lending or selling them for use in the entertainment industry while his sister Emerald (Kiki Palmer) tries to carve her own path toward Hollywood stardom. Meanwhile, their neighbor, former child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), operates an Old West theme park called Jupiter’s Claim, styled after the TV show that would be Jupe’s only claim to fame beyond Gordy’s House. He readily agrees to buy horses from the ranch, helping to ease the family’s financial hardships. That’s about all we can say without getting into spoiler territory, lest we deprive you of the joy that is putting all these pieces together on your own and settling on your own interpretation of the film’s events — and the meanings behind them.
All the important, central-to-the-story stuff gets answered eventually, but Nope refuses to resolve some of its most disturbing mysteries. In some wrong corners of the internet, wrong people wrongly call these unsolved mysteries plot holes. But that’s like asking a scientist what the universe is made of, and when they say, “Well, it’s 5% atoms and 95% other stuff,” you reply, “That 95% is a huge plot hole. Science is stupid.” Far from being laden with plot holes, Nope is full of stuff that is supposed to be incomprehensible, because that’s what cosmic horror is about: the insignificance of humanity and our utter inability to comprehend the forces that shape our lives and operate beyond our perception.
Despite being Peele’s most terrifying film to date, Nope is funny too, but in a way that's lower key than the comedy of Get Out because it’s more about delivery than what's actually being said. Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya shine in this regard as siblings Emerald and OJ Haywood. The pair are so incredibly relatable, loveable, and full of goodhearted humor — and the actors bring such energy to the screen — that audiences start wanting almost to be friends with these characters. Their interactions with the curious Fry’s Electronics salesman, Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), who goes from nosy tech guy to enthusiastic ally, are fun to watch too.
Actor Michael Wincott brings a lot of comedy to the story as well, albeit a different kind, with his it’s-so-creepy-it’s funny performance as videographer Antlers Holst, who’s made so alien via his delivery and body language — so ridiculously over-the-top — that a kind of irony develops. Every word that comes out of this character’s mouth seems at once deeply foreboding and absurdly stupid at the same time. (The guy is, after all, an obvious parody of Robert Shaw’s already self-parodying performance as Quince from 1975’s Jaws.)
The point is, the acting in this film is top notch, and the actors’ deliveries are responsible for a large majority of its funniest moments.
Some critics, like Slate’s Dana Stevens, claim that Nope “skimps on story and character,” and a quick Google search will reveal plenty of reviewers who consider this to be a meandering movie, but the length and pacing are rooted in the late-’70s films that inspired so much of Nope, including of course Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Jaws (1975), both of which clock in with runtimes of more than two hours, and both of which have that same “meandering” quality. They’re not meandering, though. Rather, Nope looks to these and other films of the era for their ability to build layered narratives full of rich, nuanced (and yes, sometimes silly) characters. Again, it’s a matter of paying attention, of being willing to take in a slower film that’s more than a collection of action sequences, explosions, and sex scenes.
Nope’s structural, conceptual, and social complexities invite a range of different and valid interpretations. Many, many critics have written thoughtful reviews on Peele's sharp-toothed commentary regarding race and class in Get Out and Us. It seems that much of the media discussion around Nope has stayed glued to those ideas, focusing on the film’s commentary on Black historical erasure and the evils of late-stage capitalism. The movie is socially conscious, though, in other, less expected, and very welcome ways. It offers parables about obsession and singlemindedness in filmmaking, as well as critiques on surveillance culture and the dangers of humanity’s lust for spectacle.
What stands out in Nope for us, though, in terms of both plot and theme, are the thoughtless and often stupid and disrespectful ways humans think about and treat other animals: as spectacles, trophies, and sources of entertainment. We'll write a Dissection on this down the road, but for now, it's enough to say that Jordan Peele's exploration of animal exploitation in media, along with other notable themes throughout the film, is thoughtful and well-executed. Perhaps even masterful.
