Anjali MathurThis month, we are going to celebrate Halloween by honoring horror movies, and especially the characters who manage to outlast, outsmart, and outrun the baddies: the Final Girl. In the past, we’ve highlighted the iconic “Final Girls.” Characters like Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott; the ones who survived the odds to inspire the genre of horror generation. This time, we are going to have a close look at the modern horror muses who undermine the power and reinvent the genre with their classic performances.
THE FINAL GIRL:
Lupita Nyong’o has played the character of Adelaide Wilson in Jordan Peele’s Us. Adelaide is shown as both, a loving wife and a loving mother who, of all the troubles, protects her family desperately from the invasion of the “Tethered” a macabre army of lookalikes who unleash mayhem across America.
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The killer she avoided:
Getting into that, throughout the movie, Jordan Peel’s Us, we are made to believe and shown all the time that all the characters are being hunted, threatened, murdered and replaced by the “Tethered”. These are the clones of every person in the world who have spent most of their lives trapped and being caged in a vast series of underground halls and now they wish to live in the light and want to make the most of it. On the other hand, it seems that Adelaide has more information about the “Tethered” than she is pretending to have about him throughout.
Why she kills:
Lupita Nyong’o won an Oscar for her dual performance in Jordan Peel’s Us which was one of her best performances of her career. As Adelaide, she has been shown ferociously dedicated towards her family and children but is also terrified of the interlopers being at her doorsteps. As “Red,” Adelaide’s Tethered, she is a mix of terrifying and tragic. Everything Nyong’o does, from her physicality to that eerie Red voice, helps sell the wild story of Us.
Of course, Jordan Peele is a horror film we can say but Us has a haunting twist that becomes interesting to watch. The film’s opening makes us all believe that Adelaide survived a run-in with her Tethered as a girl and that is aware of the threat that comes her way. Adelaide has been her own Tethered all the time and as a child, she switched two places. Red is the “real” Adelaide and she used her knowledge of the above-ground world to radicalize the Tethered below.
With all these twists and turns, ultimately Adelaide destroys Red to protect her own family. The final battle was really difficult and disturbing and clearly shows the true nature of Adelaide to her son. That Nyong’o pulled off this hypnotic double-hander is pure magic.
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Her best Moment:
The best moment in the movie that the viewers will never be able to forget is when Red reveals her voice to the Wilsons and the audience of course. Her husky voice speaks volumes about the physical and emotional pain that she’s been through in her life and that she sometimes possesses the threat that might come her way. Nyong’o becomes so terrified with the threat that she literally scares herself in one of the scenes.
Baishaly Roy
Aditi Agrawal
