Last week, I had the privilege of watching Get Out. At first, I didn’t really like it. It wasn’t because I thought that it was a horrible movie or that it wasn’t well written. Quite the contrary. It just made me feel some type of way. If that was director Jordan Peele’s intent, it worked perfectly for me! The movie was flat out weird when I first watched it. I wasn’t ready for the odd scenery and symbolism. I really just had to sit on the movie and think about it to really appreciate it. Now, I think that the movie is a masterpiece and will go down in history as a certifiable classic that defines the rest of Jordan Peele’s career post Key & Peele fame.
One of the things that helped me in better respecting the movie was reading the recap articles like Buzzfeed’s 22 Secrets Hidden In “Get Out” You May Have Missed. Reading that sparked me to think about the writing decisions that Peele made and I was blown away at how well thought out and original the script was! What seals the brilliance of the writing for me even more is the release of the alternate ending to the movie that’ll be featured on the DVD/Blue-Ray that’ll be released on May 23rd. In the alternate ending to Get Out the local police drive up and arrest Chris after he kills Rose. Rod meets him at the jail and has a devastatingly sad conversation with him that ends in Chris walking away to be brought back into the prison again.
The reason why I say this seals the deal for me in my admiration of Peele’s script writing ability is what Buzzfeed points out in the aforementioned article.
- Rose isn’t actually sticking up for Chris when she argues with the cop about showing ID. She’s avoiding a paper trail.
Had the cop run both their licenses, there would be a record that Chris and Rose were together before his eventual disappearance.
The fact that there is no record or “paper trail” on Chris and Rose and the fact that Rod tried to go to the police and tell them what was up and they laughed him out of the building intersect with the alternate ending. Plus, the reality of being black in America would be the defining narrative of the movie, probably alienating critics. If Jordan Peele truly wanted to hammer home a message, he would’ve easily left in the alternate ending! However, Peele was reluctant. He describes his reluctance to make this the ending, saying, “I wanted to give the audience what they want, I didn’t want to be their antagonist. I wanted to challenge them, show them something different, bigger and deeper. It clearly felt to them that I was pushing my agenda on them. And also, the moment the cop car comes up, I realized that the audience has done all the work for me. They jumped to the conclusion that that was the first ending, and I realized the second that happened, the whole first ending was null and moot.”
His reasoning behind not putting the alternate ending in the movie is admirable. The audience comes first and the way that the movie ended definitely provided a clear ending. I’m definitely intrigued by Peele’s work and can’t wait until his new HBO show Lovecraft County comes out!
Sources: 1) Here’s the extremely depressing alternate ending of Get Out, AV Club
2) 22 Secrets Hidden In “Get Out” You May Have Missed, Buzzfeed
4) Jordan Peele to Create Jim Crow Horror Series for HBO, Urban Intellectuals
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