In the spring was the long-awaited second film of Jordan Peel "We". His debut “Off” has already managed to collect a record box office, to come first in a very prestigious rating of films of the year by Sight & Sound magazine, to receive cult status and become an Oscar winner in the nomination “Best Original Screenplay”. Critics are thrilled again, and box office for the first weekend was called the highest for the original horror film.
Peel argues that his second film fits more into his genre than the first. His heroine is Adelaide, who saw her double in childhood. Now she is an adult woman with her husband and children, but one sunny day on the beach she again encounters replicas of herself and her family.
We have collected 11 interesting facts about the film.
1.
Despite the fact that Peel brought his debut to Sundance and it was there that he began to collect enthusiastic criticism, his next picture, contrary to the expectations of many, did not appear at the festival. It was the opening film of the South by Southwest festival, held two months later in Texas.
2.
The plot of the film is based on the episode of the series "Twilight Zone" "Mirror Image", which made a lasting impression on the director in childhood. It tells about a woman who met at the bus stop her copy, who came to replace her. Peel is also the executive producer of the reboot of this series on CBS.
3.
The initial synopsis said that in the center of the plot there will be two families - black and white. As a result, it turned out that the main conflict unfolded around the heroine Lupita Niongo, her husband and her children, and the heroine Elizabeth Moss was allocated not so much screen time.
4.
The cameraman of the film Mike Gaulakis is best known for his collaboration with M. Night Shyamalan. In addition, he made two films for David Robert Mitchell - “Under Silver Lake” and separately singled out by “It” (It Follows).
5.
Set designer Ruth De Jong is known for her involvement in such diametrically opposed projects as Manchester by the Sea and the third season of Twin Peaks. To create an artistic solution to the film, Peel, she based herself on the concept of “horror in the light of day”, trying to create tension even in the most realistic interiors.
6.
As with Away, Michael Ebels is the author of the original music. In addition to his works, in the film you can hear Beach Boys, NWA, Janelle Monet and Minnie Riperton. The last Les Fleurs song used in the soundtrack also sounded in her son-in-law Paul Thomas Anderson's “Congenital vice” movie.
7.
Of the four doubles that the main characters encounter, only a copy of the character of Lupita Niongo speaks, so she was the one who faced the most difficult acting task. According to critics, the actress coped brilliantly with her, equally convincingly playing both the frightened mother of the family and the demonic creature, which with one voice can frighten the viewer to goosebumps.
8.
According to Peel, in order to prepare Niongo for the role and to “speak the same language” in the process, he asked her to watch ten films. These are “Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock, “Die Again” by Kenneth Branagh, “The Shine” by Stanley Kubrick, “The Sixth Sense” by M. Knight Shyamalan, “Funny Games” by Michael Haneke, “Babaduk” by Jennifer Kent, “Martyrs” by Pascal Logger, “History two sisters "Ji-un Kim," Let Me In "by Thomas Alfredson and" It "by David Robert Mitchell, which has already been mentioned.
9.
Winston Duke, who plays the role of Niongo’s husband, not only crossed paths with her on the set of Black Panther, but was also a fellow student at Yale University. He describes his character as "a dad in the style of Homer Simpson."
10.
Not everyone knows that there’s a small cameo Saw in “Off” - he voices the deer, whom the main character knocks at the beginning of the film. In "We" the director included an almost identical cameo: now a dying rabbit speaks in his voice.
11.
The socio-political subtext, which sharply distinguished “Away” from other modern thrillers, was not so pronounced in the second film. However, he is present. According to the director, “This is a film about our country. When I started writing the script, I was puzzled by the fact that we began to be afraid of each other. We are talking about a mysterious stranger who, it seems to us, will kill us, or leave us without work, and those who did not vote like us. We often blame others, and I wanted to assume that the monster that we have to face is actually our face. Perhaps evil is ourselves. ” His words partially confirm the name of the film, which can be translated both as “We” and “United States”.