"Nope": Avert Your Eyes and Wrangle The Horses.

Jordan Peele returns with a psychological science-fiction thriller.

[First Published: July 27, 2022]

Nope does not live up to my hopes and expectations. Which, to be fair, were astronomically high given my love of Jordan Peele’s previous films – Get Out and Us. Both combined horror with social commentary in ways the genre had not seen before.

Nope is good but not great. It is not clear what Peele means for the film to be, odd as that may sound. The story he wrote, directed, and produced is bigger in scope but smaller in impact than his previous work. Peele seems like he is just having fun making an old-school sci-fi film with some modern touches. There are some aspects of social commentary inherent in the premise. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood. He and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) own Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, a Black-owned company that wrangles horses for movie productions in a primarily white business. They work on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, where OJ lives. Their father, Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David), ran things before dying in a freak accident when random items fell from the sky – leaving his children in debt. Unfortunately for both the late patriarch and his daughter, OJ has neither his father’s touch nor his sister’s charisma.

To make ends meet, they sell horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), a former child star who owns a Western-themed park and entertainment show with his wife Amber (Wrenn Schmidt). Jupe survived a bizarre tragedy on a sitcom set involving a chimpanzee, which sounds kind of funny, but is terrifying when Peele shows it to us.

These are pieces of a puzzle Peele is in no hurry to put together in the film, which is 2 hours and 10 minutes long. We see bits of things – fragments of a larger picture. Peele is great at offering intriguing dribs and drabs that we presume, given his track record, will add up to a satisfying conclusion. OJ and Emerald see strange activities at the ranch. Power goes out, the horses go wild, and Emerald sees what might be an alien spaceship – or worse.

“What’s a bad miracle?” OJ asks Emerald. “We got a word for that?”

Whatever is out there, OJ and Emerald are determined to capture it on film — the “Oprah shot” that will win them fame and fortune, thereby saving the business. They buy cameras from Fry’s Electronics, which leads to the insistent Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), a tech at the store, driving out to the ranch to help them set up.

Emerald tries to enlist the help of Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), a legendary and gruffly spoken cinematographer, to help them get the shot while offering nods to directors like Spielberg, Tarantino, and Villeneuve in the process.

The disparate parts — Jupe’s Western show, for example — eventually come together. How and why proves more straightforward than you might think, and it involves OJ’s expertise and knowledge. He knows how to train animals and how to avoid antagonizing them. This will prove handy.

At this point, the film becomes something like a 1950s sci-fi movie, with an oddly matched group fighting for survival against alien forces. It is one of many nods from Peele — some Spielberg, some Tarantino, some Villeneuve. In its ambition, if not much else, it is highly reminiscent of films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws.

Cliches mire Wincott’s performance while lack of screentime detracts from a fuller performance by Yeun. Kaluuya and Palmer’s on-screen compatibility makes up for the lack of character writing and time in front of the camera for the rest of the core ensemble. Palmer is fiery, loquacious, and energetic, while Kaluuya is quiet, observant, and self-aware. I am of the opinion that Palmer should be in everyone’s top five supporting actress performances at year’s end.

Nope ultimately seems like a transitional film – a link between what has gone before and what comes next. If it is a step sideways, so be it. Peele is still one of the most unique filmmakers of our time, so he has earned that. So, even with its shortcomings, Jordan Peele’s Nope is an ode to the science-fiction of yesterday with an eye toward the genre’s future.