Nope

Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood

On Saturday I took a break from the pending apocalypse to see a movie at the multiplex with the cushy recliners. No popcorn because we were saving ourselves for dinner after, but we should have had popcorn because the movie was Nope, the first honest-to-goodness, we’re-back-baby, fearless new American movie: meta, myth, and escape. This movie is a take-that-sucka to Americans of any political stripe looking to slink off to the old country, based on some fantasy that they’ll find a place where they won’t have to take the heat.

OJ and Emerald Haywood are descended from movie royalty, if only they didn’t have to remind the industry at every turn that it’s the case. OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is the cowboy hero of quiet intensity and few words. His sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) is his trumpet-voiced sidekick who—hey, girl!—sees no reason not to hit on a passing cutie she spots in the Fry’s Electronics.

I could say that Jordan Peele does for the horror genre what Quentin Tarantino did for 70’s action, but that would short-change the humanity of Peele’s characters, Nope’s good humor and its salience as cultural critique, a mosaic of references—American sitcoms, theme parks, westerns, UFOs, and who-knows-what-all.

I was blown away by image after image, but my favorite surprise expressed something I never knew I knew: that deeply buried pang of dread one gets driving through the automated carwash, when the view through the windshield is completely obscured by that last waterfall rinse (water pounds at the roof)…Where am I? What happens next?