Jordan Peele's third directorial feature is a real genre-bender. As he did with his 2019 film, Us, the former Comedy Central alum seamlessly blends sci-fi, comedy, and even western with his trademark brand of horror that's been uniquely bold, provocative, and socially-conscious since his 2017 debut, Get Out.
Many have theorized Nope to be an acronym for "Not Of Planet Earth," based on spoiler-free, cryptic marketing, since the film's plot involves a pair of siblings who hope to capture footage of possible UFOs in their area. But is it an alien invasion, or something else?
Peele claims his film is a commentary on humanity's toxic relationship with spectacle and media, as well as obsession with celebrity. Nowhere is this better illustrated than through a tragic (and shocking) subplot involving, of all things, a sitcom-starring chimpanzee and the effects of those events. At the same time, a family of Hollywood horse trainers (descendants of a colored jockey in, supposedly, the first-ever motion picture clip) represent--and shed light on--untold stories in the history of cinema, further represented in various ethnicities and identities of the supporting cast (Daniel Kaluuya's horse trainer OJ Haywood, Keke Palmer's sister Emerald, Brandon Perea's Hispanic Fry's Electronics employee Angel Torres, and Steven Yeun's Asian-American child-star-turned-amusement-park-owner Ricky "Jupe" Park).
Because the story involves scope and scale, Nope benefits from jaw-dropping IMAX cinematography by Christopher Nolan regular Hoyte Van Hoytema (who shot on rarely-used Kodak 65mm film). The sound design is a combination of mystery, silence, and dread; ditto the intriguing chapter titles, and some frightening imagery that resembles theater screens, camera lenses, carnival slides, and projectors. The aforementioned theme park, Juniper's Claim, has already become a feature attraction at Universal Studios; the tone of this very set recalls the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. And speaking of movies, there's a poster of the 1970s western, Buck and the Preacher (starring Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte), in the background of one scene.
Getting back to the film's title, it could mean turning away from impending doom ("Yeah, yeah, nah, nah"), or a lack of explanation. Characters spew references to "the little guys with the big eyes" (illustrated in visuals of creepy figurines) or "the Viewers" (hmm), not to mention a new twist on Sheb Wooley's classic 1950s song, "The Purple-People Eater."
Other themes include missed opportunities; complicated family relationships (and relationships in general, including signals); invasion of privacy (so to speak); and the cost of pursuing the impossible (recalling Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters and Jaws), with one character taking it too far by profiting off of past trauma. Michael Wincott's cameraman Antlers Holst perhaps says it best: "This dream you're chasing--where you end up at the top of the mountain--it's the dream you never wake up from."
Ironic as it is, Peele really knows how to make an event film, and then subvert our expectations. Viewers will either respond, "Yeah," "What," or simply, "Nope". Equally ironic, the film carries this sense of, "We want to look away, but we can't" (with at least one massive jump scare, and another sequence that gives the bathroom scene from 2017's It a run for its money). Or maybe there's more to this film than we think. As I said, Peele really knows how to make a socially-conscious piece of cinema, which no one should say no to.
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