Get Out began
with a Black man being kidnapped and never seen again. I realize Peele was quickly
setting the tone for the movie. The car turned around, for no reason, other than
the person walking down the street being Black. One streetlight lit up the
sidewalk and frame. The abduction and kidnapping foreshadowed future events, as
Chris was held hostage in the Armitage’s’. The film began with an establishing
shot showing Chris’ apartment or condo. Peele utilized a montage to show some
photos Chris took as a photographer. Rose, lying to Chris, mentioned he was her
first Black boyfriend and discussed plans with him to visit her parents’ home.
Traveling to Rose’s parents, she and Chris see and hit a deer. Revealing his
sensitive side, Chris got out of the car to stand at the edge of the forest and
stare at the dead deer. A foot shot and faraway shot are used to show Chris’s
location relative to the forest. The officer asked Chris for his license even
though Rose was driving the vehicle in the accident.
As Chris and Rose arrive at her
parents’, an establishing shot shows the house and Rose’s parents coming to
greet them. Chris is perplexed by Walter and Georgina, a groundskeeper and maid
who work for the Armitage’s’. Dean, Rose’s dad, asked if Chris smoked. Missy, Rose’s
mom, tapped her tea glass for the first time (she would later stir the glass to
hypnotize Chris). A dinner conversation between Jeremy and Chris explained the
Armitage family’s interest in Black people, as Jeremy wanted to discuss Chris’s
physical and genetic makeup. Chris was asleep when he began having visions of
the forest with the deer. He arose and went outside to clear his head,
following a strange shot of Georgina walking behind and staring at Chris as he
went outside. Chris was in the backyard and about to smoke. He is shocked and
relieved when a sprinting Walter comes right for him but misses him at the last
second. The scene was a long-wide-shot of Walter sprinting at Chris and a
close-up of Chris’ face to catch his reaction as Walter veered at the last
second.
The story significantly shifted as
Missy invited Chris to sit down with her to talk about his smoking (Missy had
the tea class in her hand). Missy stirred her tea as she probed Chris about his
whereabouts on the night his mother died. Attempting to lure Chris into the
“heightened sensibility” phrase of her hypnosis, she wished Chris to “find the
rain” on the night his mom died. Chris, clearly not wishing to discuss the
topic, found the rain and became very emotional. Missy exacerbated Chris’s
emotions and guilted him into wondering why he did not do anything to find his
mother. Chris began tapping the surface of the chair, a tactic he used when he
first sat with Rose and her parents, and a tactic seen in his flashback to the
night his mom did not come home. The tapping may signify Chris feeling uncomfortable
and/or nervous. Missy then asked if Chris was at fault for his mom not coming
home, causing Chris to become paralyzed. He began “sink[ing] into the floor”
and into his childhood bed. He appeared to be floating in the air. A close-up conveyed
a wide-eyed and teary-eyed Chris in a chair across from Missy, immediately
followed by a point-of-view shot from Chris’s perspective into Missy’s face.
Missy appeared on a distant screen from Chris, who was falling in the air and looked
to be in “the sunken place.”
Chris then woke up in a sweat and
ventured into the forest behind the Armitage’s to take some pictures. He saw
Georgina in a window and desired to take a picture, but quickly withdrew upon
Georgina spotting him. Walter told Chris he knows who Chris is and apologized
for almost running into him. He then asked Chris if the meeting with Missy
worked in curing Chris’s urge to smoke. Chris did not have the urge to smoke
anymore, but he had thought the meeting was only a dream. Rose and her family
hosted a party for her grandfather, and most guests (besides Hudson the
photographer) made tone-deaf comments toward Chris. Guests felt his shoulders,
asked Rose about Chris’s romantic prowess’s, and commented “Black is in
fashion.” Chris met another Black man named Logan, who is later recognized as a
musician who has been “missing” for the previous six months. Logan, like
Georgina and Walter, acts almost robotic-like to Chris and may have been
hypnotized. Georgina unplugged Chris’s phone sometime during the party and
apologized, sort of, for the unplugging. She claimed she “answered to no one”
and said the Armitage’s “treat [me] like family.” Back outside, Logan is asked about his
experience as an African American. He explained his experience has been mostly
“very good.” Chris snapped a photo of Logan, causing Logan to go into a tantrum
and yell “Get Out!” to Chris. Chris, in an action making sense later in the
film, claimed to have known the guy coming at him when the flash went off. He
did not know Logan, but he knew the face of the guy whose name was Logan (given
by his much-older girlfriend). The camera cut to Dean when Chris said he
recognized Logan’s face, so I assumed Chris thought of Dean somehow when Logan
came charging at him.
Rose and Chris came back to the Armitage house after a walk, and
we saw the whole family together for the first time. Walter and Georgina stood
on the pathway smiling, Jeremy was sitting playing the ukulele, and Missy and
Dean stood around each other. The whole family was staring at and waiting for
Rose and Chris to enter the house. Chris’ friend, Rod, reminds Chris “Logan” is
Andre Heyworth, a friend the two of them knew from back in the day. This phone
call with Rod instilled a sense of urgency in Chris. He knew he needed to get
out of the Armitage house. Chris told Rose to find the keys and went into a
little closet with a red box. The box contained several photos of Rose with her
previous boyfriends. Her previous boyfriends were all Black, contrary to her
telling Chris he was the first Black boyfriend she ever had. Jeremy blocked the
front door and the whole family enclosed Chris as he tried to escape.
Suspenseful music marred the scene, as Dean began reflecting about mortality
and fire as he stood right next to the fireplace. Jeremy swung at Chris, and
Rose, who couldn’t find the keys the entire time, eventually found them. She
dangled the keys in front of Chris and said: “You know I can’t give you these,
right babe?” Missy tapped the tea glass, and, as before, Chris became
hypnotized. Chris is dragged into the basement and is depicted in “the sunken
place” again with the faces of Missy and Rose distant on the screen. An
establishing shot is used to show Chris is in the Armitage basement and a
close-up zoomed in on Chris’s face as he was handcuffed to a chair.
A television screen is placed in front of Chris’ chair in
the basement. Roman Armitage, the patriarch of the family, appeared on the
screen to tell Chris he had been chosen by the family for the “physical
advantages you’ve enjoyed your entire lifetime.” Missy followed on the screen
with the stirring of the tea again. Rod called Chris’ phone a third time after
not hearing a response the first two times. Rose picked the phone up and
changed the subject to her and Rod as opposed to focusing on Chris’ location. Dim
lights lit up Rose’s face in the call, as she could not remember the cab
company Chris used to take home. A recorded message on the television screen
appeared for Chris. The message highlighted the three steps in Armitage’s
program: hypnotization, mental preparation, and a surgical procedure with part
of the brain. Chris would have limited consciousness and exist “as a passenger,”
similar to Walter, Georgina, and Logan. He ended up freeing himself from the
chair and killing Dean and Missy. Chris hit Jeremy with an object in the head,
and after Jeremy woke back up, was able to strike a fatal blow to Jeremy with a
knife. Georgina was hit by Chris as he drove off from the Armitage’s and Chris
felt bad enough to stop and bring her into his car. She woke up and punched
Chris, causing Chris to stop the car and encounter Walter and Rose. Rose
attempted to shoot Chris, and Walter, instead of tackling Chris, shot Rose before
shooting himself. Chris started to choke Rose, with a low angle shot pointing
up to Chris (he was in a dominant position and in power over Rose). Rod arrived on the scene in a police car to
drive Chris away, leaving Rose to bleed out and die.
I love how detailed this summary is. You included such vital details and transitioned between topics seamlessly.
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