'NOPE' is, at the core, a film about films, and a story about stories.
Drawing from inspiration such as 'The Thing' and Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre, Jordan Peele veers from his typical psychological horror films to situate himself firmly in the realm of science fiction. The title alone is a beautiful call to the trope of smarter characters in sci-fi or horror fleeing rather than fighting a primordial flying beast with no known weakness.
'NOPE' starts with a clip of the first man committed to film — an unnamed Black jockey riding Annie G. At least, that’s the story the film tells us. Peele did use historical footage of a Black man riding a horse, however it wasn’t the first instance of a man committed to film.
Twisting this narrative, perhaps subverting it, gives credence to the kinds of stories we have in our family trees that are lost to time, much as the father of the main characters, Keke Palmer’s Em Haywood and Daniel Kaluuya’s OJ Haywood, is lost at the beginning of the film.
By telling this story every time they run a safety check on set, Em and OJ solidify their family’s history in the annals of cinema over and over, daring the audience to let their ancestor go as many Black men and women’s stories have been lost to time and colonisation.
The character of OJ was at first, I felt, underutilised, but Daniel Kaluuya is the perfect choice for this character, whose true emotions simmer under the surface until his life is in danger, to which he reacts with a simple, “NOPE.” His calm and exhausted demeanour might lead one to think of him as simply clocking out when things get tough, but instead he faces danger head on, like a true action hero.
The western influences throughout this film, the meta-cinematography, and the lengthy monologues about wild and fantastical happenings (such as Angel’s monologue about UAPs and Jupiter’s monologue about the 'SNL' skit), ease this movie into the cinematic canon like we were waiting for it all along.
Sound is used in this film in a complete, almost overwhelming, way. Overwhelming to the senses, but also to the mind, broadcasting to the viewer the perspective of the characters who endure it.
The polyphonic cacophony of sounds that rage throughout the film create an atmosphere that outshines even the scariest of horror films, including the ones Jordan Peele intertextualises. I’ve yet to see a film with as much emphasis on sound as this one.
The other exciting and fundamental element to this film is the way ordinary people sensationalise the extraordinary things that happen to them — mostly for profit.
This film wraps up the themes of stardom, the impossible, and exploitation in a way that nothing has done before, specifically because it draws on racial and cinematic history to create a metatextual delight of sound and fury.
‘NOPE’ is in cinemas now.
