Jordan Peele has done it again. On July 22nd, 2022, Peele released his newest film entitled “Nope”. Be warned – the following movie review includes spoilers, so if you haven’t gone to see this masterpiece yet, feel free to browse away from this site.

Before watching, it is important to understand the underlying themes present in the film. The entire film focuses on the harmful effects of spectacle and the exploitation of others, whether it be animals or other individuals. Additionally, there is a theme of unresolved trauma present in each of the characters present in the film – but we’ll get there.

“Nope” opens with a very faint audio clip that foreshadows the traumatic scene midway through the movie titled “Gordy”. In this opening scene, we see a monkey covered in blood, looking around at a tattered movie set. The scene pans to a frightened young boy, who we later identify as Jupe, played by Steven Yeun.

After this scene, the concept of Gordy is abandoned for awhile, causing the audience to forget the overall importance of the chimp. The film shifts its focus onto OJ and Emerald Haywood, played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer.

The siblings live on Haywood Hollywood Horses Ranch in Agua Dulce, California, where they train and sell horses with their father. Early in the film, OJ witnesses his father’s strange death, and the siblings shift their focus on trying to capture live footage of a UFO. They enlist in the help of Angel Torres, played by Brandon Perea, in capturing evidence of this anomaly.

OJ Haywood, grief-stricken from his father’s untimely death, begins to lose the importance of his own life, poking at the danger. Evidently, OJ doesn’t really care if he dies like his father.

Simultaneously, Emerald just wants to be included. This is seen when OJ speaks to Jupe about selling horses to him. Emerald references when her father enlisted her brother to sell her own horse, and she is later seen viewing a film with the prewritten script she uses in the Hollywood scene. Emerald is focused on getting content because she feels as if she never contributes to the family business.

Angel Torres chooses to help the siblings because he needs a distraction from his recent breakup. The siblings choose to keep him around because they are afraid and find a sense of comfort in Angel’s presence.

While OJ is trying to sell horses to Jupe, Emerald notices a door that leads into a room full of merchandise from the hit TV show, “Gordy’s Home”. Inside the room, there is a poster of the atomic fist bump, mannequins of chimpanzees, and the shoe that we see in the opening scene.

When Emerald asks Jupe about what happened on set, he describes the scene through the lens of a Saturday Night Live skit. He is only able to speak about Gordy through the performance of the actor who portrays him, describing him as “crushing”, “killing”, and “a force of nature”. Clearly, Jupe is unable to describe the massacre through his own experience, and chooses to turn his trauma into a financial opportunity, bragging that he allowed a couple to spend the night in the Gordy’s Home Room.

Jupe is an excellent example of the theme of unresolved trauma. He takes his experience on the set of Gordy’s Home and turns it into financial opportunity. Simply put, he believes he is special because Gordy did not choose to kill him. Because of this, Jupe tries to tame nature by showcasing the Agua Dulce alien to crowds of people. One day, the alien decides to fight back, killing Jupe and his entire audience. One of the most chilling parts of this scene is the showcasing of Jupe’s child co-star, whom Gordy attacked in the Gordy’s Home scene. Until this point, the audience is led to believe that she didn’t survive the attack, but in the Jupiter’s Claim scene, we see that she has survived, and we realize that her face was torn off and eaten by Gordy.

Clearly, Jupe didn’t learn his lesson about the exploitation of forces of nature, and he reaches his demise because of this. The casualties of Jupiter’s Claim are also to blame as they have visited simply to see this spectacle.

After this event, hell breaks loose on the ranch. The alien grows hungrier, terrorizing the siblings and Angel. Finally, the trio decides to flee Agua Dulce, but they come back with a plan to capture footage with a well-known Hollywood director, played by Michael Wincott.

Wincott’s character is quite interesting. When Emerald first reaches out to him for his help in capturing content, he speaks of dying atop a mountain. Later, when the group finally captures footage of the alien, he tries to flee with the film, saying that Emerald and OJ don’t deserve the footage. He climbs atop a hill, staring directly into the alien, and dies with all of the footage the group has worked to capture. Wincott hopes to be a martyr in this plan, but it is uncertain whether he is destroying the evidence out of racism or out of his personal depression.

There are many layers to this fantastic film by Jordan Peele that occur within the end of the movie, but there has been a vast deal of speculation regarding what each of these ending scenes can mean. For your sake, I will ask that you all watch Nope and see what you can gather.

Nope is a must-see and Jordan Peele’s genius has once again showcased itself in a spectacular film.