After raking in $70 million USD on its opening weekend and keeping the Internet active on sharing the film’s plot twists and theories, Jordan Peele himself has finally come out to explain the ending of Us and what it all means.
Sitting down with The Empire Podcast the Academy Award winning writer told readers why the big Us twist had to happen among other topics. Find some of Peele’s answers below.
Warning: Spoilers lay ahead
On the ending:
“This movie’s about maybe the monster is you. It’s about us, looking at ourselves as individuals and as a group. The protagonist in the movie is the surrogate for the audience, so it felt like at the end of the day, I wasn’t doing my core theme any justice if I wasn’t revealing that we have been the bad guy in this movie. We’ve been following the villain. I say villain lightly because I think there are many experiences of the film, and I think a lot of people go through a question of what is good and evil? Does that even exist? Both characters are lovable and terrifying, based on the lives they’ve led they’ve just sort of inverted the paths.”
On the “nature vs. nurture” debate:
“I think one of the questions that’s raised is privilege, and the neglect that sort of presumption of deserved privilege requires. And when people are on the other side of it, when people have received the rough end of the nurture argument, and they rebel or act in violence or commit crimes on that side, is that evil or is that circumstance?”
On the film’s opening scene:
“That was an intentional reflection, seeing the girl with her scissors cutting the paper dolls while watching—everything that she’s gonna use in her expression and her journey at the end of the film is kind of in there, in that scene somewhere… The muzak that’s playing over the Hands Across America commercial is “Le Fleurs”, the song that we kick in in full in our final Hands Across America.”
On the look Jason gives “Adelaide” at the end of the film:
“Adelaide and Jason sharing that moment at the end, I’m purposefully leaving it a bit vague as to what exactly he knows or how far he’s come in figuring out what, if anything, he’s figured out. I think the little smile she gives him is a lot of things. I think it’s a connection to the evil smile she once had as a little girl, but also a sort of understanding that her family unit was stronger from this experience.”
For more on the film, Jordan Peele recently revealed his unconventional Us cameo.
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