Principal photography began in February 2016 in Fairhope, Alabama, then moved to Barton Academy and the Ashland Place Historic District in Mobile, Alabama. The entire film was shot in 23 days. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 24, 2017, by Universal Pictures. The film received critical acclaim for its screenplay, direction, acting, and social critiques. It was a major commercial success, grossing $255 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, with a net profit of $124.3 million, making it the tenth-most profitable film of 2017.[2]
26-year-old Chris Washington, a Black photographer, travels to upstate New York for a weekend getaway to meet the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage. Her brother Jeremy and their parents, neurosurgeon Dean and hypnotherapist Missy, make casual disparaging comments about Black people, and Chris witnesses eerie behavior from the family's Black servants, Georgina and Walter.
Missy pressures Chris into a hypnotherapy session to cure his smoking addiction. While in a trance, he confesses that his mother was killed in a hit-and-run when he was a child and he feels responsible as he waited too long to call for help. At Missy's prompting, he falls into a dark void she calls the "Sunken Place", where no one can hear him. The next morning, he is surprised to discover that the hypnosis worked; he no longer feels a desire to smoke.
Dozens of wealthy white people arrive for the Armitages' annual get-together; Chris feels uncomfortable with their remarks about him. He meets blind art dealer Jim Hudson, who takes interest in Chris' photography rather than his race, and another Black man, Logan King, whom he finds familiar but cannot place. Like Walter and Georgina, Logan behaves oddly and is married to a white woman thirty years his senior. Chris tries to photograph Logan but when the camera flash goes off, Logan becomes hysterical, rushing at Chris and frantically shouting at him to "get out".
The party guests hold a silent auction, disguised as a game of bingo where Hudson makes the winning bid, with Chris as the "prize". Chris sends the photo of Logan to his friend, TSA officer Rod Williams, who recognizes him as Andre Hayworth, a missing man from Brooklyn whom Chris and Rod knew through mutual connections. Suspecting a conspiracy, Rod tries to tell the police but they just laugh him off. Chris finds photos of Rose in prior relationships with numerous Black partners, including Walter and Georgina, contradicting her claim that he is the first Black person she has ever dated. He tries to leave, but Rose withholds the car keys, and Missy uses a hypnotic trigger to send him back to the Sunken Place.
Chris awakens strapped to an armchair in the basement. In a video presentation, Rose's grandfather, Roman, explains that the family transplants wealthy white people's brains into others' bodies, granting them preferred physical characteristics and a twisted form of immortality. Hudson then appears and explains that the host's consciousness remains in the Sunken Place, alive and able to observe but powerless as the person controls their body. He insists that he does not care about Chris' race and only wants his eyesight. Missy then knocks Chris out again.
When Jeremy comes to fetch Chris for the surgery, it is revealed that Chris blocked the hypnotic trigger by plugging his ears with cotton stuffing pulled from the armchair. He bludgeons Jeremy, kills Dean and Missy, then kills Jeremy when he attacks again. Chris attempts to escape in Jeremy's Porsche but accidentally hits Georgina, who is possessed by Rose's grandmother Marianne. Compelled by guilt from his mother's death, he retrieves her but she attacks him, causing the car to crash. Marianne/Georgina is killed.
Rose and Walter, who is possessed by Roman, arrive. Chris uses the flash on his phone to incapacitate Roman the way he did Logan/Andre. Walter temporarily regains control of his body, taking Rose's rifle and shooting her, then himself. Police sirens approach, and Chris surrenders, knowing the police will believe Rose's cries for help, but the driver is revealed to be Rod, who has come for his friend. The pair drive away, leaving Rose to bleed out on the road.
Cast
Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington, a young black photographer who is invited by Rose to her family's house
Zailand Adams as 11-year-old Chris
Allison Williams as Rose Armitage, the daughter of the Armitage family and Chris Washington's girlfriend
Bradley Whitford as Dean Armitage, a neurosurgeon and Rose's father
Stephen Root as Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer who is a member of the wealthy Order of the Coagula organization
LaKeith Stanfield as Andre Hayworth / Logan King, the latter a member of the Order of the Coagula who has taken over the body of Andre, the person who had gone missing 6 months prior to the film's events
Catherine Keener as Missy Armitage, a psychiatrist and Rose's mother
Lil Rel Howery as Rod Williams, a TSA Airport police officer and Chris' best friend
Marcus Henderson as Walter, the Armitage's black groundskeeper, who is actually Roman Armitage in Walter's body
Betty Gabriel as Georgina, a black housekeeper who is actually Marianne Armitage, the Armitage family matriarch and Rose's grandmother, in Georgina's body
Richard Herd as Roman Armitage (before having taken over Walter's body), founder of the Order of the Coagula and the patriarch of the Armitage family, also the grandfather of Rose
Jeronimo Spinx as Detective Drake
Ian Casselberry as Detective Garcia
Trey Burvant as Officer Ryan
Geraldine Singer as Philomena King
Writer-director Jordan Peele voices the sounds made by the wounded deer, and narrates a UNCF commercial.[6]
Production
Development
Get Out is Jordan Peele's directorial debut.
Get Out is the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, who had previously worked in comedy, including the sketch show Key & Peele.[7] He felt the horror and comedy genres are similar in that "so much of it is pacing, so much of it [hinges on] reveals", and that comedy gave him "something of a training" for the film.[7]The Stepford Wives (1975) provided inspiration, about which Peele said, "it's a horror movie but has a satirical premise."[8] As the film deals with racism, Peele has stated that the story is "very personal", although he noted that "it quickly veers off from anything autobiographical."[7]
Peele was introduced to producer Sean McKittrick by comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key in 2013.[9] "I was shooting a movie with Keegan-Michael Key. He said, 'You gotta meet Jordan, he's a horror fanatic and he has all these ideas.' Jordan and I met for coffee in New Orleans. He said, 'Here's one you'll never want to make,' and he pitched me the whole story. I'd never seen that movie before. It fascinated me. So I said right at the table, 'Okay, I'm going to buy this pitch and pay you to write it.' I think he was a little shocked."[9] Peele wrote the first draft of the script in two months.[9]
Casting
Allison Williams was cast to disorient audiences into trusting her character.
The lead actors, Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams, were cast in November 2015,[10][11] with other roles cast between December 2015[12] and February 2016.[13][14] Kaluuya was cast based on the strength of his performance in Black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits".[15] "That party sequence is why I really wanted to do this film, because I've been to that party," Kaluuya told the Los Angeles Times.[16] "He [Chris] feels like an everyman. He's kind of like J. Cole. Chris is that guy that everyone knows, who has been in everyone's class at school. That good guy from around the area."[17]Tiffany Haddish was asked to audition for a role in the film but declined.[18]
Williams said she was cast by Peele as a sneaky gambit to disorient audiences. "Jordan told me that he had always pictured me as Rose because Peter Pan or Marnie would make it easier for people to trust me," Williams noted.[9] "I was looking for a role that would weaponize everything that people take for granted about me. So I instantly signed on to it."[9] Williams later observed that white audiences frequently misinterpret the motivations of her character Rose by defending her as being a victim of the cult, an interpretation she rejects, as the character is simply evil.[19] The scene where Rose drinks milk while looking at potential future victims was conceived shortly before shooting to add an additional creepy element to the character. The song used in the scene, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", is intended to reflect Rose's emotional detachment. "There's something kind of horrific about milk," Peele explained. "Think about it! Think about what we're doing. Milk is kind of gross."[20]
Although this movie was filmed in Alabama, Jordan Peele has stressed that the story is not supposed to be understood as taking place in Alabama or anywhere in the South. During a February 2017 interview with Bethonie Butler in the Washington Post, Peele said "he deliberately avoided setting the movie in red state territory. 'It was really important for me to not have the villains in this film reflect the typical red state type who is usually categorized as being racist. It felt like that was too easy,' he said. 'I wanted this film to explore the false sense of security one can have with the, sort of, New York liberal type.'"[24] According to a February 2017 Geoff Herbert article in the Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, the movie is set in Upstate New York.[25]
Peele described conceptualizing the "sunken place" as an impassioned journey in an interview with Vanity Fair. "I always had this concept of the place that you're falling toward when you're going to sleep, and you get that falling sensation and catch yourself. And if you didn't catch yourself, where would you end up? I had this hellish image, and I thought of this idea of, 'What if you were in a place, and you could look through your own eyes as if they were literal windows or a screen, and see what your body was seeing, but feel like a prisoner in your own mind—the chamber of your mind?'" Peele explained. "The moment I thought of that, it immediately occurred to me the theme of abduction and connection to the prison industrial complex that this movie was sort of presenting a metaphor for. It was a very emotional discovery. I remember having so much fun writing it, but at that moment when I figured out this weird, esoteric, but also an emotionally brutal form of suffering to put the character through—I literally cried writing the scene."[26]
Lil Rel Howery says the allegorical symbolism in the film is strongly entrenched in the fear historically experienced by African Americans. "It goes back to the way I grew up; I'm just being honest," Howery explained. "Segregation created this. Stories about people like Emmett Till. It's history; crazy things have happened, so people are going to embellish and pass that onto their kids as a warning. Jordan was so smart to hit on all these stories that could be considered myths, but a lot of it is rooted in truth."[27]
Peele was worried about the film's chances of success, telling the Los Angeles Times, "What if white people don't want to come to see the movie because they're afraid of being villainized with black people in the crowd? What if black people don't want to see the movie because they don't want to sit next to a white person while a black person is being victimized on-screen?"[28]
Alternative endings
In the original ending, Chris is arrested by the police after strangling Rose. Instead of rescuing Chris, Rod meets him in jail and asks him for information about the Armitage family to investigate, but Chris insists that he stopped them and everything is fine. Peele intended this ending to reflect the realities of racism.[29] By the time production had begun, however, several high-profile police shootings of black people had made discussion, in Peele's words, "more woke". After gauging reception at test screenings, he decided the film needed a happy ending, but felt a moment when the audience believes Chris is about to be arrested would preserve the intended reaction.[30][31]
Peele considered several other endings, some of which are included on the DVD and Blu-ray release. In one ending, Rod breaks into the estate, finds Chris, and calls his name, but Chris responds, "I assure you, I don't know who you're talking about."[32]
Michael Abels composed the film's score, which Peele wanted to have "distinctly black voices and black musical references." This proved to be a challenge, as Peele found that African-American music typically has what he termed "at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it." At the same time, Peele also wanted to avoid having a voodoo motif. The final score features Swahili voices as well as a blues influence. "Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga" is a Swahili phrase that translates to "listen to (your) ancestors," which indicates to the listener, "something bad is coming. Run."[33]
The soundtrack was released on vinyl for the first time in 2018 by Waxwork Records and included an exclusive essay by Peele.[37]
Themes and interpretations
Get Out has been described as critical of post-racial America, the concept of "colorblindness", and neoliberalism.[38][39][40] Lanre Bakare in The Guardian notes, "The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'alt-right'. They're middle-class white liberals. [...] The thing Get Out does so well—and the thing that will rankle with some viewers—is to show how, however unintentionally, these same people can make life so hard and uncomfortable for black people. It exposes a liberal ignorance and hubris that has been allowed to fester. It's an attitude, an arrogance which in the film leads to a horrific final solution, but in reality leads to a complacency that is just as dangerous."[41]
Peele stated that the character of Hudson, who literally is colorblind due to his physical blindness, "still plays a part in the system of racism", due to his belief that the eyesight of a black photographer will give him an "advantage".[42] Hudson distances himself from the racial context of taking Chris' body, claiming to be only interested in his eyesight and reducing him to an aesthetic.[43][44]
Scholar Thai-Catherine Matthews draws parallels between Chris and Barack Obama, noting their "suspension" between racial and social identities. Matthews says Obama comes to the conclusion that this "suspension" can foster positive relations in his memoir Dreams from My Father, while Get Out "views suspension as the ultimate hell".[45] Ryan Poll cited the film as an example of Afro-pessimism.[44]
The film also depicts the lack of attention on missing black Americans compared to missing white girls and women. Slate's Damon Young stated the film's premise was "depressingly plausible ... Although black people only comprise 13 percent of America's population, they are 34 percent of America's missing, a reality that exists as the result of a mélange of racial and socioeconomic factors rendering black lives demonstratively less valuable than the lives [of] our white counterparts."[46]
Peele wrote Rose as a subversion of the white savior trope, and in particular, of films where most white characters are evil, but one is good.[47] Peele and Williams stated that Rose behaved like a teenager as her emotional development was delayed.[48] Williams believed that Rose was not a victim of indoctrination, hypnotism or Stockholm syndrome, but simply evil.[49][50] After Rose's intentions are revealed, her previous "soft and welcoming" appearance becomes a "vision of cold, meticulous elitism", with hunting jodhpurs, a white dress shirt, and a "sleek ponytail"; she hangs photographs of her ex-partners on her wall like hunting trophies.[48]
Reception
Box office
Get Out grossed $176 million in the United States and Canada and $79.4 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $255.5 million, against a production budget of $4.5 million.[1]Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $124.8 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the 10th most profitable release of 2017.[51]Vulture described Get Out's 5.3 multiple (total divided by opening weekend gross) as "staggering".[52]
In North America, Get Out was released on February 24, 2017, alongside Collide and Rock Dog, and was expected to gross $20–25 million from 2,773 theaters in its opening weekend.[53] The film made $1.8 million from Thursday night previews and $10.8 million on its first day. It went on to open for $33.4 million, finishing first at the box office. 38% of the film's opening-weekend audience was African American, while 35% was white, with Georgia being its most profitable market.[54] 90% of its opening weekend ticket sales were purchased at the theater (versus in advance).[55] In its second weekend, the film finished in second at the box office behind new release Logan ($88.4 million), grossing $28.3 million, for a drop of 15.4%. Horror films tend to drop at least 60% in their second weekend, so this was above average.[56] In its third weekend, the film grossed $21.1 million, dropping just 25% from its previous week, and finished third at the box office behind newcomer Kong: Skull Island and Logan.[57]
In March 2017, three weeks after its release, Get Out crossed the $100 million mark domestically, making Peele the first black writer-director to do so with his debut movie.[58] On April 8, 2017, the film became the highest-grossing film domestically directed by a black filmmaker, beating out F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton, which grossed $162.8 million domestically in 2015. Gray reclaimed the record two weeks later when The Fate of the Furious grossed $173.3 million on its fourteenth day of release on April 27.[59] Domestically, Get Out is also the highest-grossing debut film based on an original screenplay in Hollywood history, beating the two-decade-long record of 1999's The Blair Witch Project ($140.5 million).[58] By the end of March, Los Angeles Times had declared the film's success a "cultural phenomenon" noting that in addition to its box office success, "moviegoers have shared countless 'sunken place' Internet memes and other Get Out-inspired fan art across social media." Josh Rottenberg, the editor of the piece, attributed the film's success to the fact that it was released "at one of the most politically charged moments in memory."[28]
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 403 reviews, and an average rating of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, Get Out seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride."[60] The film was the highest rated wide release of 2017 on the site.[61] On Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 85 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[62] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave an 84% overall positive score and a 66% "definite recommend".[54]
Richard Roeper gave the film 3+1⁄2 stars, saying: "the real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style—and is flat-out funny as well."[63] Keith Phipps of Uproxx praised the cast and Peele's direction, saying, "That he brings the technical skill of a practiced horror master is more of a surprise. The final thrill of Get Out—beyond the slow-building sense of danger, the unsettling atmosphere, and the twisty revelation of what's really going on—is that Peele's just getting started."[64] Mike Rougeau of IGN gave the film 9/10, and wrote, "Get Out's whole journey, through every tense conversation, A-plus punchline and shocking act of violence, feels totally earned. And the conclusion is worth each uncomfortable chuckle and moment of doubt."[65]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave Get Out a 3.5 out of 4, and called it a "jolt-a-minute horrorshow laced with racial tension and stinging satirical wit."[66] Scott Mendelson of Forbes said the film captured the zeitgeist and called it a "modern American horror classic".[67]
Critic Armond White gave a negative review in National Review, referring to the film as a "Get-Whitey movie" and stating that it "[reduces] racial politics to trite horror-comedy ... it's an Obama movie for Tarantino fans."[68] The New York Observer critic Rex Reed included the film on his list of 10 Worst Films of 2017,[69] and later sardonically stated in a CBS Sunday Morning interview, "I didn't care if all the black men are turned into robots." A writer on Sunday Morning's website noted that there are no robots in the film.[70]
In 2018, IndieWire writers ranked the script the third best American screenplay of the 21st century, with Chris O'Falt arguing that Peele "walked a narrative tightrope that required as much craft as insight [...] the audience's understanding of what Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is thinking and feeling is always clear. Hitchcock-like in its execution, and playing off genre and audience expectation (especially about how racial dynamics are traditionally portrayed on screen), the twists and turns of Get Out are not only gasp-inducing; each one reveals a new layer to its exploration of systematic racist belief systems."[71]
At the 90th Academy Awards, the film earned four nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Daniel Kaluuya.[72] Peele became the third person (after Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks) to earn Best Picture, Director and Screenplay nominations for a debut film, and the first African-American winner for Best Original Screenplay (and fourth overall nominated, after John Singleton, Spike Lee, and Suzanne de Passe).[73] It also became the 6th horror film to be nominated for best picture, after The Exorcist, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, The Silence of the Lambs and Black Swan. Get Out divided Oscar voters, with many older members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences dismissing it or choosing not to see it. According to Vulture, new voting members said they ran into "interference" from more senior members when it came to evaluating the film as Best Picture. "I had multiple conversations with longtime Academy members who were like, 'That was not an Oscar film,'" according to a new voter. "Honestly, a few of them had not even seen it and they were saying it, so dispelling that kind of thing has been super important."[74] One anonymous Oscar voter told The Hollywood Reporter they felt alienated by the Oscar campaign: "Instead of focusing on the fact that this was an entertaining little horror movie that made quite a bit of money, they started trying to suggest it had deeper meaning than it does, and, as far as I'm concerned, they played the race card, and that really turned me off. In fact, at one of the luncheons, the lead actor [Kaluuya], who is not from the United States, was giving us a lecture on racism in America and how black lives matter, and I thought, 'What does this have to do with Get Out? They're trying to make me think that if I don't vote for this movie, I'm a racist.' I was really offended."[75]
At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, Get Out received two nominations: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Comedy or Musical for Daniel Kaluuya.[76] The submission in the comedy category prompted debate about the premise of the film.[77] Although advertised as a "satirical horror film," Universal Pictures submitted it as a comedy because of less competition in the category, which gave the film a greater chance of receiving accolades. Peele joked in a tweet, "Get Out is a documentary," but it was reported he approved of the submission.[78]
^Ramos, Dino-Day (October 22, 2017). "'Get Out' Director Jordan Peele On Divisiveness, Black Identity & The "White Savior"". Deadline Hollywood, Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved March 21, 2018. With the character of Rose (Allison Williams), the audience expects to see her come out as the white savior to save Chris, [...] He takes a beat and jokes, 'Sometimes all white people are evil — sometimes — but not all the time.'
^Yuan, Jada; Hunter Harris (February 22, 2018). "The First Great Movie of the Trump Era". Vulture.com. Retrieved March 21, 2018. Williams: My instinct is that Rose [...] would she keep doing this?" and he said, 'Yeah.'
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