Get Out (film)

Plot

Black photographer Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) are preparing for a trip to meet her parents, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener). Chris has some concerns because Rose has not told her parents that he is black, but Rose assures him everything will be fine and they depart. They hit a deer while driving, and Chris is distressed to see it dying slowly in the woods instead of being killed instantly.

As Chris and Rose arrive at the Armitage family estate, Rose points out the black groundskeeper, Walter (Marcus Henderson). Rose's parents are warm and welcoming, with Dean giving a house tour and introducing him to their black housekeeper Georgina (Betty Gabriel). As Chris gets to know the Armitages, he relates how his mother died in a hit-and-run incident when he was eleven years old. They also discuss Chris’ smoking habit and Missy, a psychiatrist, offers to help him quit through hypnosis. Chris politely declines just as Rose's brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) arrives for dinner.

That night, when Chris goes out into the backyard to smoke, he observes strange behavior from Walter and Georgina. As he re-enters the house, he runs into Missy, who brings up Chris' smoking habit and invites him to sit down with her. She again brings up hypnosis before asking Chris about the night his mother died. Chris reveals his guilt for not calling 911 as soon as he noticed that his mother never came home, and instead sat watching television for several hours. He finds himself unable to move and realizes he is being hypnotized. Missy commands him to sink into the floor, and his consciousness falls into a void as Missy tells him, from a distance, that he is now in "the sunken place". Chris suddenly wakes up in bed and believes that the encounter was just a nightmare. However, after a conversation in which Walter apologizes for his strange behavior the night before, Chris realizes that Missy did hypnotize him after all.

Guests arrive for the Armitages' annual get-together, where various older white couples take an interest in Chris. Chris meets celebrated blind art dealer Jim Hudson (Stephen Root), and a black guest, Logan King (LaKeith Stanfield). Chris is unsettled by Logan's bizarre demeanor and significantly older white wife. He calls his best friend, TSA Officer Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery), discussing Missy's hypnosis of him and the odd behavior of the black people on the area. Later, Chris tries to stealthily take a picture of Logan with his phone, but its camera flash causes Logan to suffer a nosebleed and hysterically yell at Chris to "Get out!" Dean explains away the episode by claiming that the flash caused Logan to have a seizure.

As Chris and Rose go for a walk, Chris tells Rose how uncomfortable he feels around the guests and Rose agrees to leave with him that night. While Chris and Rose are gone, Dean holds an auction for Chris, with Jim placing the winning bid. After returning to the estate to pack, Chris sends the picture of Logan to Rod, who recognizes Logan as Andre Hayworth, an acquaintance of Chris and Rod's from Brooklyn. Concerned, Chris tells Rose that they need to leave immediately. While Rose gets her bag, Chris finds a box in Rose's closet containing photographs of her snuggling with a series of black boyfriends, including Walter, and one that shows her with Georgina. Dean, Missy, and Jeremy block them from leaving, and Rose reveals herself as an accomplice in their plan to kidnap Chris. He attempts to escape but is incapacitated by Missy's hypnosis.

Rod becomes concerned when Chris does not return home or answer his calls, and discovers that Andre went missing six months ago; he seeks help from the local police, but they do not take him seriously. Meanwhile, Chris wakes up strapped to a chair in the basement of the Armitage house and learns that the family has perfected a method of pseudo-immortality in which Dean, a neurosurgeon, transplants the brains of his older friends and family into the bodies of young black people whose minds have been conditioned for the procedure by Missy. Jim plans to use Chris as a host so he can regain his sight, and Chris will be doomed to exist in "the sunken place" for the rest of his life as Jim controls his body.

As Dean begins the surgery, Jeremy prepares to bring Chris in. Chris knocks him out and flees, having plugged his ears with the chair's stuffing and faked unconsciousness. He kills Dean, Missy, and Jeremy and escapes the grounds in Jeremy's car, but hits Georgina while dialing 911. Feeling guilty again for not helping his mother, Chris puts Georgina in the car to get help for her. However, because Georgina has already been converted into a vessel for Rose's grandmother, she awakens and causes him to crash into a tree, killing her. Alerted by the sound of the crash, Rose arms herself with a rifle. She and Walter (a vessel for her grandfather) catch up to Chris. As Chris and Walter fight, Chris uses his phone to take a picture of Walter, and the flash frees Walter from his hypnosis. Walter tells Rose to give him the rifle, then shoots her in the stomach and kills himself. Chris pushes the rifle out of Rose's reach and begins to strangle her, but cannot bring himself to kill her and stops as a police car pulls up. Rose cries out for help, hoping to trick the officer into seeing Chris as the aggressor, but the driver turns out to be Rod. He and Chris drive away, leaving Rose to die from her gunshot wound.

Cast

Keegan-Michael Key, comedy partner of Jordan Peele, has an uncredited appearance as a photo of an NCAA prospect displayed on Rose's laptop.

Production

The film is the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, and marks a genre shift for him, as he has traditionally worked in comedy, although he has stated that he had been wanting to make a horror film for a while. He stated that the genres were similar in that "so much of it is pacing, so much of it reveals", noting that he considers that comedy gave him "something of a training" for the film. The Stepford Wives (1975) provided inspiration for Peele, who said "it's a horror movie but has a satirical premise." As the film deals with racism, Peele has stated that the story is "very personal", although he noted that "it quickly veers off from anything autobiographical."

The two lead actors, Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams, were cast in November 2015, with other roles cast between December 2015 and February 2016.

Principal photography on the film began on February 16, 2016. It filmed in Fairhope, Alabama for three weeks, followed by shooting at Barton Academy and in the Ashland Place Historic District in midtown Mobile, Alabama.

Original ending

Peele originally intended for the film to end with Chris being arrested by police for the murder of Rose and her family, and intended the scene as a reflection of the realities of racism. However, by the time production had begun, several high-profile police shootings of black people had, in his words, made the situation surrounding racism "more woke," and he decided the film needed a happy ending for its lead.

Soundtrack

Michael Abels composed the film's score, for which Peele wanted to have "distinctly black voices and black musical references". This proved to be a challenge, as Peele found that African American music typically has what he termed "at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it". At the same time, Peele also wanted to avoid having a voodoo motif. The final score features Swahili voices, as well as a blues influence.

Themes

Get Out has been seen by some commentators as a satire on the dynamics of so called "West Wing liberals", who consider themselves to be allies to movements against racism, yet do more harm than good. Lanre Bakare of The Guardian commented on this, saying, "The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'alt-right'. They're middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe's, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could. Good people. Nice people. Your parents, probably. The thing Get Out does so well – and the thing that will rankle with some viewers – is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It's an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous."

Box office

In the United States and Canada, Get Out was released on February 24, 2017, alongside Collide and Rock Dog, and was expected to gross $20–25 million from 2,773 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.8 million from Thursday night previews and $10.8 million on its first day. It went on to open to $33.4 million, finishing first at the box office. 38% of the film's opening weekend audience was African American, while 35% was white, with Atlanta being its most profitable market. In its second weekend, the film finished in second at the box office behind new release Logan ($88.4 million), grossing $28.3 million, for a drop of 15.4%. This was above average for horror films, which tend to drop at least 60% in their second weekend. In its third weekend, the film grossed $21.1 million, dropping just 25% from its previous week, and finished third at the box office behind newcomer Kong: Skull Island, and Logan.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99%, based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, Get Out seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride." The film held a 100% approval rating after 139 reviews, one of the biggest number of critics to give a film a positive review on the site before a negative one (that was written by Armond White) was registered in its history. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 83 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Richard Roeper gave the film 3.5/4 stars, saying, "[T]he real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style — and is flat-out funny as well." Keith Phipps of Uproxx praised the cast and Peele's direction, noting: "That he brings the technical skill of a practiced horror master is more of a surprise. The final thrill of Get Out — beyond the slow-building sense of danger, the unsettling atmosphere, and the twisty revelation of what’s really going on — is that Peele’s just getting started." Mike Rougeau of IGN gave the film 9/10, and wrote: Get Out's whole journey, through every tense conversation, A-plus punchline and shocking act of violence, feels totally earned. And the conclusion is worth each uncomfortable chuckle and moment of doubt." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated Get Out a 3.5/4, and called it: "[A] jolt-a-minute horrorshow laced with racial tension and stinging satirical wit."