Recently, I just watched the film Get Out, which came highly recommended by just about everyone. Needless to say, when everyone is saying it’s a great movie, and then you start seeing/reading things about how it’s getting rave reviews, most notably the 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, then the bar is being set onto some skeptically high heights.
To cut to the chase, I did think Get Out was a really good movie. It’s well acted, thought-provoking, with great timing on comedic moments to break the tension and levity of the constantly escalating conflict of the story, with some pretty good twists because everyone loves twists in the plot.
Worthy of a certifiable fresh rating on snarky websites like Rotten Tomatoes? Definitely. But to be given the sheer volume of critical response it received? I think it’s a little overblown. Frankly, after the film ended, I couldn’t help but feel like, especially given the sheer nature of the entire film, that there’s a prevalent aftertaste of white guilt involved in how the film was so universally acclaimed. I feel like I could see clear as day the irony of a film that touches on white guilt on almost an anthropological way is applauded by the vastly white majority of popular media, who watched it undoubtedly in an anthropological manner.
It’s a very good movie, don’t get me wrong, and I would love to see what Jordan Peele does next in the future. But maybe it’s because I’m in a minority group substantially more minor than blacks in American society that I just don’t see anything about how white people treat black people for me to be apologetically lenient with my judgment of a film over.
