![]() And, crucially, the moment she finally kills Red, she lets out a deep roar that’s similar to the primal calls of the Tethered - as if she’s remembered her first language at last.ģ) “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” is a trigger for Adelaide to fully recall what she did At several points, she seems to struggle for coherent language, and early on, she tells her friend Katie that she sometimes has trouble talking - which we realize she means literally. ![]() ![]() Meanwhile, Adelaide actually seems to occasionally lose her grasp of English as she gets closer to uncovering the truth. For instance, when Abraham (Gabe’s double) is out on the boat, he hears a call from one of the other slaves in the distance, and calls out to them in turn. But it’s an actual language we see the slaves use it to communicate multiple times. That manifests as a primitive form of communication that sounds like incoherent noise to us. She notes that the others have all gone mad from the deprivation of their lives below, in which they’re essentially forced (by powers unknown) to mimic the motions of living in a torturous echo of their above-ground counterparts. Though her voice is rusty from disuse, Red clearly speaks English - in fact she starts with the phrase “once upon a time,” which makes sense given that her last memory of spoken language most likely involved hearing children’s stories.īut she’s the only one of the escaped Tethered slaves who does. The figures on it are also colored in red, which is why, when she eventually leads her fellow Tethered slaves to rise up, she has them all don the color red and recreate the image.Ģ) Red is the only one of the Tethered who knows English That Hands Across America shirt is another obvious link for Red to her former life above ground. She then is forced to trade places with Adelaide, who puts her own Hands Across America sweatshirt on Red and takes the other girl’s Thriller T-shirt instead. We’re given several prominent shots of it before she goes inside the maze - where one of the last thing she sees is a bright red “Exit” sign. The last thing she is eating before she’s kidnapped and taken to the Underground is a bright red apple. The color red seems to be a powerful trigger for Red. (Note: From here on out, we’ll call the original Adelaide “Red” and the replacement Adelaide “Adelaide.”)ġ) For Red, the color red represents freedom and her memory of her old life But before we think about that too closely, let’s look at the big clues we get that tell us what’s really going on. In the present day, Red has become the leader of the underground slave rebellion.Īll of this makes it difficult to say who is the imposter and who is the victim. The one from the Underground - attempting to escape from horrific enslavement down below - attacked and kidnapped the one from above, replacing her in her old life as “Adelaide.” The girl formerly known as Adelaide then grew up in captivity underground, becoming known as “Red.” Meanwhile, the new, replacement Adelaide apparently repressed her memory of what happened and grew up believing she was the real Adelaide. To break down the film’s ending, we of course have to reveal the giant plot twist, so here goes: When the two girls met in the carnival maze years ago, they switched places. Spoilers ahoy! There are three big clues that tell us about the women’s identities ![]() But you might not have caught all the details - or how the connection between Adelaide and Red ultimately helps enrich the film’s overall symbolism. If you’ve already seen the film then you know there’s a lot more connecting the two women than a mere case of stalking. (Both women are played by Lupita Nyong’o in an incredible dual performance.) That’s partly due to the complicated relationship between the main character, Adelaide, and the mysterious woman, Red, who appears out of her past. The movie, like creator Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out, is rife with metaphors - only in Us, the allegory is much more ambiguous. You can be forgiven for being confused at the end of Us. ![]()
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