Get Out. 2017. USA. Written and directed by Jordan Peele. With Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root and Catherine Keener. 104 min.
Having developed the film before the results of the 2016 election were known, director Jordan Peele didn’t necessarily intend for his debut feature to resonate in the viscerally contemporary ways it does. Though it was promoted as a horror film, its true terror lies in the mirror it holds up to latent liberal racism and cultural appropriation. Set in locales that will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s visited 21st-century Manhattan or Connecticut, the creeping dread of Get Out feels very close to home. Vividly entertaining and urgently relevant, it may well be the defining film of our times.