Few filmmakers have inspired confidence so early into their career as writer-director Jordan Peele has. Nobody had pinned the comedian turned director to have the impact he has behind the camera, with his third film, Nope, crossing the $100 million milestone at the domestic box office - an extraordinary achievement for an original film, particularly in an IP-driven landscape. And it is indisputably deserved. Get Out, nominated for four Oscars, stands as one of the twenty-first century's defining horror films while scaled-up follow-up Us demonstrated an auteur with immaculate precision over their craft.
Set on a horse ranch in California, Nope follows two siblings who discover something sinister in the skies above, and become determined to prove the presence of an otherworldly phenomenon. Nope sees Peele reunited with Daniel Kaluuya, who costars alongside Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun and Brandon Perea. Nope continues to allow Peele's creativity to run free and any feature that allows such unparalleled creativity should be commended on that basis alone; but in spite of the potential and resources at his disposal, Nope is, quite crucially and rather disappointingly, not nearly as interesting or compelling as it should be.
From the offset, Peele makes it clear that he will be expanding beyond the world of horror for Nope, aiming to create his most ambitious, spectacular feature to date. At least on a visual level, Peele can be commended for the effort. Of course aided by a sizable budget, notably bigger than your run-of-the-mill micro-budget genre flicks, there's a vastness to Nope that the genre rarely captures, a larger-than-life intrigue that pervades throughout that the flick. Peele's influences are well-executed and plentiful, but there's no denying the film's own creativity and identity. Further verification of Peele's talent? His ability to attract other masters of their craft; Michael Abels' soundtrack and Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography are both superb elements that enrich the film's visual wonders.
Peele has a decent concept on his hand and the thematic musing regarding the world's inability to look away from tragedy and its proclivity for a spectacle would make a pleasing horror feature. But Peele wants to be and do and say more: a sci-fi feature, a western and dabble in comedy too, but the tuning leaves a lot to be desired. It spreads itself too thin - with a lengthy 127-minute runtime as proof - and, as such, it finds itself unable to delve deep enough to explore the various genres, threads or notions with the richness they could and should be dealt with at this calibre of filmmaking.
A streamlining would mean a much-needed step close to satisfaction but Nope is plagued by a disjointedness that hampers the film's pacing and prevents that from happening. There are stretches in Nope that seem massively unfocused; the context is exciting (the chimp curtain-opener is masterful) and it's clear that the stage is being quietly, confidently set - but little ever seems to fully resonate or connect. Whenever the dots are on the verge of being connected, Peele recoils, seemingly fixated on the enigma. He places such trust in his audience but here it seems to operate at a disservice to the film itself, and a less satisfying project is the result of that -- it seems to shrink into itself rather than charge boldly and confidently ahead. This is coming from a writer who has demonstrated a knack for slowly lifting the curtain while still registering those rug-from-under-the-feet thrills that have the sudden thrill and emotional pay-off that makes cinema so exciting. That Peele misses the mark - and that the stronger, superior and more satisfying picture is within reach, scratching beneath the surface - is what makes it so frustrating here.
Peele also stumbled in the writing of these characters. Kaluuya's OJ is clearly out of his depth having inherited his father's business following a freak incident, but beyond that initial shading, he's an empty shell the film spends little time developing or exploring. It's not through lack of trying on Kaluuya's behalf, who could elevate any character with a once-in-a-lifetime talent - but Kaluuya's more internalised, grounded work is not the sort to distract from the bareness of his character, unable to extract enough depth from the character - which perhaps emphasises the deficiencies elsewhere as we don't have a strong enough figure to root our interests in.
Keke Palmer lights up the screen and the film always feels stronger in her presence. Palmer has this excitable energy the film otherwise lacks and her bravado means she's able to escape the hollowness of the character more so than Kaluuya, who has no choice but to play it straighter. Their chemistry and camaraderie is evident and it would be a joy to see them in a Peele film that had a stronger narrative around them. Yeun is a fascinating addition and his Jupe has an abundance of potential in the way he connects to certain events and developments - but, without wading into spoiler territory, this is another area the film underdelivers: it stops one step short of really connecting. These characters should be the emotional core of the piece but none of it is strong enough to bear that weight.
It would be difficult not to feel underwhelmed by Nope, not only based on writer-director Jordan Peele's previous achievements and the promise of the concept at hand but as a feature in its own right. It's worth stressing that it is by no means a bad film -- Peele is too skilled a director to deliver a film that doesn't have more than a handful of strong qualities that belong at home on the big screen. But years down the line from now, Nope will be viewed as a compelling failure in Peele's filmography: an instalment that demonstrates the range and ambition of the director at the helm but an unsatisfyingly bloated and hollow exercise whose ambitions ultimately escaped their grasp.