Confused aboutJordan Peele‘sUs? The 40-year-old Oscar winner is answering fans’ questions about the shocking ending to his hit horror.
Beware of SPOILERS for the film beyond this point.
In the climax, the lead character Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) finds herself trying to outrun and outsmart her look-a-like, Red, only to find out there is an entire population of people’s doppelgängers living in underground tunnels.
In a twist befitting of Peele (whose last film was the similarly twistyGet Out), Red turns out to be the real Adelaide, having been made to forcibly switch places with Red as a child decades prior.
Peele, 40, opened up about the film onEmpiremagazine podcastlast week in which he said, “The movie’s about maybe the monster in you. It’s about us, looking at ourselves as individuals and as a group.”
Lupita Nyong’o, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright Joseph.Claudette Barius/Universal Pictures
“The protagonist in the movie is the surrogate for the audience, so it felt at the end of the day, I wasn’t doing my core theme any justice if I wasn’t revealing that we have been the bad guy in this movie,” he continued. “We’ve been following the villain. I say ‘villain’ lightly because I think there are many experiences of the film, and I think a lot of people go through a question of what is good and evil?”
He added, “Does that even exist? Both characters are lovable and terrifying, based on the lives they’ve led they’ve just sort of inverted the paths.”
Stephen Lovekin/BEI/Shutterstock
In a final scene between Adelaide and her young son Jason (Evan Alex), the two exchange a look leaving it up to audiences to decide whether the boy is aware of her real identity.
“Adelaide and Jason sharing that moment at the end, I’m purposefully leaving it a bit vague as to what exactly he knows or how far he’s come in figuring out what, if anything, he’s figured out,” Peele said.
He added, “I think the little smile she gives him is a lot of things. I think it’s a connection to the evil smile she once had as a little girl, but also a sort of understanding that her family unit was stronger from this experience.”
Usis now in theaters.
source: people.com
