By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you lived in rural California and suspected alien activity near your farm, what would you do about it? Would you contact the authorities or set up trail cams for your personal safety? Or would you go into hiding so you don’t have to deal with getting abducted, probed, and all of the other horrible things that allegedly happen after getting sucked up by a UFO’s weird laser beam thing? If you’re like the characters in 2022’s Nope, you might have the wise idea to try getting the perfect shot of the spacecraft so you could sell it to the highest bidder, sell the ranch, and become filthy rich off that sweet, sweet alien money.
At its core, Nope is a film about exploitation, and the lengths people go to make something out of themselves, consequences be damned. Looming just beneath the surface, though, is another story about resilience, ingenuity, and adapting to an increasingly bizarre situation, not just for clout, but for survival and saving face.
I’ve Been Through The Desert On A Horse And Got Maimed
When we’re first introduced to OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) in Nope, it’s under tragic circumstances. During a freak accident in which metal objects fall from the sky, OJ’s father (Keith David) is struck dead when a nickel goes through his eye and into his brain. Suddenly stuck managing the family farm, OJ finds himself in a tough spot. The family business involves training horses that can be used in Hollywood productions, but after a grisly on-set incident, OJ and his younger sister Em (Keke Palmer) are kicked off the movie lot.
To close the financial gap, OJ starts selling horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), a former child star who now owns the theme park Jupiter’s Claim. Ricky does well for himself despite his traumatic past. As a child, Jupe starred in Gordy’s Home, a sitcom about a family with a pet chimp. The show was suddenly canceled after the chimp on set was pushed to its limit, resulting in the cast and crew getting mauled. In addition to running the theme park, a grown-up Jupe allows fans of the sitcom to spend the night in a room full of memorabilia from the show, for a nominal fee, of course.
While OJ struggles to get through each day running his late father’s farm, he starts noticing electrical disturbances, and his prized horse, Lucky, begins behaving strangely. OJ swears he sees some sort of unidentified object hiding behind the clouds, so he and Em purchase trail cameras and all the equipment they can get their hands on, inadvertently recruiting a tech salesman named Angel (Brandon Perea) to help them out with their project. The goal is simple: capture solid footage of the UFO, then reap the benefits.
What OJ doesn’t know, however, is that Jupe is also aware of the alien presence and has been using the horses he bought from him as bait. He’s already making a living exploiting his horrific past, and it seems to be a solid business model for him, so why not exploit what he can in the present as well? Luckily, OJ and Em have something Jupe doesn’t: the help of renowned cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott). As the UFO slowly descends on the community of Agua Dulce, California, there’s no telling what its motivations are, but it’s reasonable to assume it has been watching everybody for a very long time and has some serious apprehensions about being discovered and documented.
Believable Characters In A Preposterous Situation
While the scenery, cinematography, and action sequences are top notch in Nope, what really kept me enthralled was the relationship between OJ and Em. Their interactions as brother and sister feel completely authentic, and if you didn’t know they were actors in a movie, you’d think they were actually related. I haven’t seen sibling chemistry this good since Donnie Darko, where Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal used the fact that they’re siblings in real life to effortlessly portray a believable brother and sister dynamic on-screen.
OJ is clearly the more responsible sibling, feeling the weight of obligation to do right by his father’s business. He has a legacy to think about, but you can tell he’s tired. So tired, in fact, that he has almost zero patience for Em’s more fast-and-loose approach to life. In her mind, she and her brother will one day sell the farm, collect a nice payday, and move on with their lives. OJ is tempted, but you can tell he isn’t quite ready to do that.
However, both come to the same conclusion that while they still own the farm that just so happens to have an alien presence, they should take a page from Jupe’s playbook and exploit the opportunity to get a perfect shot they can sell to the tabloids for an epic payday. The parts that made me laugh the most, even though they’re not overtly hilarious, involve Em getting ready to settle down for the day while OJ flatly announces that after all of the extracurriculars they just did, he still has to get back to work because he has mouths to feed. It’s total big brother energy.
Add in the ingenious absurdity of using a bunch of Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men as bait to lure the entity out of the sky, and you have a movie that really looks like nothing else.
Nope is sincere, exploitative, gorgeously shot, and packed with vibes thanks to its setting alone. It will also make you want to drive out into the middle of an empty field with a good camera in hope of finding alien life, because we all know they’re out there somewhere, but every single picture we’ve seen so far has been blurry and inconclusive.
Nope is coming to Netflix on May 18, 2026, so be sure to set a reminder if you’re ready to sit down with what may very well be Jordan Peele’s best film.
