22 minutes
THE MOVIE starts with a family visiting an amusement park at a beach in Santa Cruz.
The young daughter, Adelaide (Madison Curry), wanders away into a fun house filled with mirrors.
She is confronted by her reflection, but soon realises it is a girl who is an exact copy of her – her doppelgänger.
Terrified, Adelaide runs back to her parents.
But she is never the same child again.
Then the story switches to present day, where an adult Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) is on holiday with her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and two children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), at the family’s beach house near Santa Cruz.
At the beach, they meet friends Josh (Tim Heidecker) his wife, Kitty (Elisabeth Moss), and their twin teenage daughters (Cali and Noelle Sheldon).
Later that night, the family find four figures in their driveway who suddenly try to attack them.
The strangers turn out to be their angry, deranged doubles.
So begins a deadly cat-and-mouse game between the family and their doppelgängers.
Writer-director Peele managed to build a sense of suspense that had me on the edge of my chair, constantly fearing for the safety of the family.
Some scenes are creepy and haunting.
Nyong’o shines as a woman who is determined to save her family.
The film lies on her shoulders and she rises to the occasion.
Despite her limited screen time, Moss impressed me as a woman who slowly loses her mind towards the middle of the film.
However, the film is far from perfect.
Peele did not really provide a proper explanation for the existence of the doppelgängers.
This put a damper on my full enjoyment of the film.
There is a twist at the end. I easily guessed it.
I am sure many others will, too.
But revealing it will only spoil your chances of enjoying the film.
Other reviewers have hailed this film as a ‘horror masterpiece’, and labelled Peele ‘the next Alfred Hitchcock’.
I enjoyed some moments in the film, but I would not go to the extent calling it a masterpiece – and we have yet to find a replacement for the talented Hitchcock.
