Nope — A Review.

6th January, 2023: Nope.

Right … 

Just out of curiosity?   How’s the audio on that intro video?

I have to admit: I got curious about the basic — very basic, I’m no sound engineer! — things I could do with the open source sound app, Audacity.

I think — by adding a distortion effect to the audio, then reimporting icon into iMovie — I’ve got an interestingly tinny effect.

That’s possibly not what you were expecting, were you?   A discussion of audio tweaking!

No.

You were expecting me to do what I’ve been doing on odd evening.

Telling you I’m planning to watch a movie … once I’ve had dinner.

Dinner’s will be going onto a plate, any minute.

Then eaten.

Then?

I’m going to watch a film … and tell you about it, tomorrow night … 

~≈🍿≈~

7th January, 2023.

Written and directed by Jordan Peele, Nope — stylised as NOPE — opens with the usual production company credits: credits that tell us the film has been distributed by Universal, and financed by Peele’s own Monkeypaw Productions.

But these credits … ?   Come complete with the sound of a TV audience watching a recording.

We get a brief intertitle, one that quotes Nahum 3:6;

“I will cast abominable filth upon you,

Make you vile,

And make you a spectacle.”

Before moving on: to show us the TV studio where recoding has taken place.   And where a chimp in a paper hat is shown to be attacking the rest of the cast.

The scene shifts, again: and moves to the modern day.

It introduces us to Otis ‘OJ’ Haywood Jr (Daniel Kaluuya): who — at the start of the movie —is having a mild argument with his father, Otis Sr (Keith David).

Otis Sr … ?   Within seconds of telling his son that he’s off to explore the family ranch, Otis Sr is hit by something coming out of a blue sky.

Hit … and killed.

OJ?   Is understandably traumatised.

We’re shown how he’s had to take his father to the nearest emergency room … as the old man slowly bleeds to death in the car.

After the opening titles?

After the opening titles, we see that OJ is back at work: as the family ranch’s horse wrangler.

And finds himself joined by his sister, Em (Keke Palmer): who now co-owns the Haywood family ranch, and is keen for it to do well, after their father’s death.

Especially as that day’s work — for cinematographer, Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) — ends badly: and especially when Em finds her brother has been selling some of their valuable horses to rival, Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park.

It seems Jupe is buying as many horses as possible.

And using them as bait: for something that’s been attacking livestock in the area.

Something that isn’t quite normal … 

~≈🍿≈~

Now … what did I make of Nope?

Was it good, bad, indifferent?

Did it get me thinking things?

Let’s look at that last question, first, shall we?

I recently saw Glass Onion: A Knives Out recently: and came away very impressed with Daniel Craig’s southern US accent.

Granted, he used a voice coach: and, granted, I don’t know if an American would be fooled.

But I was impressed with it.

I was equally impressed Daniel Kaluuya’s accent.

I don’t know if they’re using the same vocal coach: but — to me, at least — Kaluuya sounds both convincing and restrained.

It’s a mark of both the man’s talent, and sheer graft.

There’s other things that caught my eye.

The creature, the thing that’s at the heart of the story?

Is quite a piece of design: one that shifts between different forms during the course of the film.

Towards the start?   It’s tucked behind a permanent cloud: and seems to be a UFO*.

It’s only as the film progresses that we see it change form: to something that looks like a butterfly made out of bedsheets and tentacles.

I know that doesn’t sound menacing.

But the thing looks menacing, threatening and positively Lovecraftian.

More so than something made of bedsheets had any right to be.

It’s very effective.

~≈🍿≈~

There’s other eye-catching things in there.

You notice I described the creature as Lovecraftian?

I think Nope’s setting helped, there: it, much like The Colour Out of Space, is set in a rural part of the world that’s miles from anywhere, and being menaced by a thing from beyond space.

A colour in one, a creature in the other.

That’s none too surprising.

Especially as Peele produce the HBO series, Lovecraft Country.

Peele’s preferences are showing, there.

Another thing struck me: although I suspect it’s a minor thing.

I noticed that one character was called Jupiter, or Jupe for short.

Played by Steven Yuen, he’s the recovering child actor who was the only survivor of the chimp attack seen at the start of the film.

It literally struck me, this morning: to ask if Jordan Peele had read any of The Three Investigators books as a child.

As one of the main characters is a former child star called Jupiter.

I don’t know for sure: but, to me?   The co-incidence seemed significant: but could be nothing more than that!

I noticed something else, too.

Do you know what intertitles are?

They’re on-screen text messages.   In early silent movies, they did all sorts of things: supplied character dialogue, told the what the setting is … 

And, in the case of Nope?

Told us what the name of each section of the film: Ghost, Clover, Lucky, Gordy, what have you.

That … ?   Got me wondering whether Peele’s a fan of the late Stanley Kubrick: as that’s something I’ve only seen in a few Kubrick movies.

2001: A Space Odyssey, included!

That’s something I was able to confirm with Peele’s Wikipedia entry.

He is.

And I, for one, am grateful.

I believe that fan sensibility shows: in the tone, the colour palette, the sheer pace of this film.

Nope is quite an experience.

Yes: it’s complicated and needs time devoted to it.

Yes: the pace can seem a little slow, especially at first.

And yes: the creature looks like a cross between a butterfly, bedsheet and yucca plant.

But yes: Nope is quite a film to watch.

With Peele’s adroit mixing of Kubrick and Lovecraft, and Kaluuya’s performance, it’s one I feel will repay you.

NOPE.

★★★★

*        One character calls it a UAP, an Unexplained Aerial Phenomena: apparently, that’s the preferred term.