NOPE is what OJ Haywood says when he sees something that does not sit well with him, be it what appear to be tiny visitors from another world invading his stable, or the offer to sell the family spread after a freak accident kills his father (David Keith). As played by Daniel Kaluuya, he is a slow simmer of a man in high contrast to his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), who effervesces her way through life more interested in the dozen or so side ventures she is nurturing instead of Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, the family business that has kept them on the fringes of show biz since they were kids. Their squabbles date back to childhood, but what appears in the sky over their failing enterprise will put all of that into a new perspective.
Jordan Peele’s latest may be a scattered effort, but it is certainly an interesting one. There is a puckish element, from the cultural associations with the name of OJ, to the way kitschy air dancers figure into the grand finale of his latest eerie tale. There is also an enigmatic element, and a welcome one as Peele ponders the human-animal dynamic as well as those members of the show biz community that aren’t in the stratospheric heights of fame and fortune. Though, maybe at times Peele is too enigmatic.
OJ and Emerald, bickering polar opposites, are suddenly confronted by something they can’t explain, but which Emerald is convinced is their ticket to those ci-mentioned stratospheric heights. Coincidentally, that’s just where it resides, hidden in a cloud between bouts of abducting our planet’s creatures and knocking out the electricity. Emerald’s plan to stage a UFO video quickly gives way to a desire to capture the real thing with what she terms an Oprah-worthy clip. This plan eventually includes the allegorically monikered Angel (Brandon Perea), a disaffected box store techie grieving the actress girlfriend who left him when she was cast in a cable pilot, and a laconic cinematographer, Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott channeling Marlon Brando and Indiana Jones) who bakes lemon tarts of near perfection and has a reputation for getting the impossible shot.
It’s more mood than action here, with an energy level much like OJ’s simmer, and digressions into the tricky world of kid actors negotiating adulthood, as refracted through the character of Jupiter (Steven Yuen). He’s the cheerful neighbor running an old-west attraction next to the Haywoods, stretching his name recognition as the child star of two middling television shows into a long-term middling livelihood. It explains the murderous monkey that opens the film before jumping to the present, the backstory of which punctuates the story and is, perhaps, a metaphor for the damage inflicted on a child’s psyche by taking part a grownup business.
The story meanders, though never becomes dull thanks to Peele’s gift for creating vivid characters that is enhanced by the charisma of the lead actors. There’s also the truly original twist that Peele has given his strange visitor from another world. The suspense is diffused, though, and opportunities for a lean and mean effort are not taken despite some well done, if familiar, tropes. Still, the shots fired at conspiracy theorists and the denizens living on the outskirts of Tinsel Town in varying degrees of denial and desperation have an aim that is true and pointed.
NOPE, always capitalized, may be an acronym for something else. All concerned leave it to the audience to sort that out. When it works, it is terrific. So much so that it is eminently worth seeking out on a large screen. It may not send shivers up anyone’s spine, but it will beguile, amuse, and occasionally offer a genuine jump-and-scare moment.
Your Thoughts?