Ronit J

Nope (2022) Synopsis:

What’s a bad miracle?
Residents in a lonely gulch of inland California bear witness to an uncanny, chilling discovery.

Nope (2022) Review:

As someone who absolutely loved Get Out (2016), I was excited for Nope. While I didn’t love Us (2019), it was good enough. Plus, I’ve enjoyed Peele’s work right from his Key & Peele days. However, for one reason or another, I just didn’t get the time to sit down and watch Nope.

Until a few weekends ago. And man… I wish I had watched this in a theatre. I didn’t expect Nope to be better than Get Out, but it worked for me on so many levels. While Get Out was exceptionally good, the themes and plot were a tad esoteric. Nope, on the other hand, deals with more globally relevant themes, some of which hit too close to home. From the exploitative nature of Hollywood (or film business in general) to exploiting nature itself for the sake of profit and spectacle, Peele has created a story that’s dense with meaning. But if you want to switch off your brain and just enjoy the spectacle, he gives you that too in all its horrifying beauty.

Things start going downhill for OJ when his father is fatally injured in a freak accident. When he inherits the ranch, he and his sister Em (short for Emerald, played by Keke Palmer) try their best to keep things running. However, Hollywood too is changing, embracing CGI and slowly weeding out animals and animal wranglers. What OJ really needs is a miracle.

But, not all miracles are good. Another freak incident follows, wherein the siblings sight a UFO, leading them to try and capture the UFO on video in an attempt to make money.

Peele is a master storyteller

Nope follows a horse ranch run by Otis “OJ” Haywood Jr (Daniel Kaluuya). The Haywood’s Hollywood Horses Ranch supplies steeds to film production, claiming to be descendants of the uncredited black jockey featured on one of cinema’s first ever clips: a jockey riding a black horse. Right from the opening scenes, it’s clear that there’s some strange phenomena happening in and around the horse ranch. After all, the ranch is located in an area that’s notorious for UFO sightings. Hell, former child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) runs a UFO-themed amusement park just nearby, trying to capitalise on the notoriety.

On the surface, it is about two siblings trying to survive in a world by continuing their family tradition of breeding and training horses for showbiz. However, their family vocation is in threat of becoming obsolete. As technology advances, the siblings are forced to sell their horses to lesser demands like amusement parks, capitalising on the diminishing spectacle market. As strange phenomena make themselves apparent, it’s this very spectacle that the siblings bank on to make money, uncaring towards the exploitation that they’re unwittingly participating in.

The characters in Nope felt as real as can be. Humans with flawed perspectives doing their best to survive. Each was dealt a card that didn’t necessarily fit with their hopes and dreams. Yet, each is playing that card as best they can. Ricky with his amusement park, OJ with the ranch, and Em with her multitudes of side gigs. With the internet demanding spectacle every second, the story follows these siblings trying to get first mover’s advantage so they can save the farm.

Miracles, Spectacles and Taming Nature

Nope is a layered film. The moment I finished watching it, I had so many thoughts about taming nature and about the exploitation that the film depicts. From Gordy’s snapping (unexplained, but probably overworking and unforseen triggers), to Ricky being exploited as a minority child actor (working on a set with an animal), to his subsequent capitalisation of his experience by starting Jupiter’s Claim and deeming himself ‘special’, the film goes out of its way to show exploitation in many different forms. Ricky’s flawed view of the world is a direct result of his traumatic experience. However, Ricky ends up embracing the exploitation, resulting in his untimely demise after Jean Jacket (the unexplained alien/monster phenomenon) attacks his park and eats all the guests (whose demands are indirectly responsible for the exploitative business in the first place).

Where Ricky thrives on Spectacle, OJ and Em struggle to provide the same to Hollywood (a literal factory of spectacle). OJ’s understanding and connection with horses enables him to see Jean Jacket for what it is: an animal. He attempts to tame it, but with an ulterior motive of profiting from the phenomenon. After all, Jean Jacket’s nature has left OJ injured, fatherless, and now dealing with property damage. It’s only fair to make some money out of it, no? The end, with Jean Jacket’s death, was symbolic to me of humanity’s failure to understand nature. When Jean Jacket is noticed by more people, the immediate response is to capture footage and make profits, not to understand the creature and see where it fits in the ecosystem.

What if Jean Jacket were essential to the survival of the planet? What if Jean Jacket were an alien, engaging with whom could have opened avenues to interplanetary travel and scientific development? The characters in Nope don’t ask those questions, swapping intellectual engagement with immediate gains. Something that’s been key to human society, and is also inherently responsible for everything that’s wrong with our planet today.

Nope (2022) Ending Explained (SPOILERS)

OJ, Em and Angel identify that Jean Jacket isn’t a spaceship, but a living organism. A real miracle of a megaflora that’s been hiding in plain sight and has gone unnoticed for all these years. Instead of hunting it down, they seek the help of cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), who prides himself on being able to take the most impossible shots, including wildlife documentaries.

The group stages a bait scenario featuring flags and battery-powered tube-men (Jean Jacket is wary of these because of a prior bad experience) in an attempt to have Jean Jacket float in the air just enough to be able to capture the image on film. However, things quickly go south as a TMZ video reporter zooms in with an electric bike, trying to capitalise on the same. Jean Jacket wreaks havoc, killing the reporter, Antlers and Angel. However, Jean Jacket spits Angel out because he’s entangled in barbed wire. The wire injures Jean Jacket, prompting it to unfurl into its truly biblical form.

OJ lures Jean Jacket away, hoping to have Em escape. Em, believing OJ is dead, rides to Jupiter’s Claim. There, she uses the giant mascot to lure Jean Jacket to her, and uses the park’s coin-operated well camera to capture a photo of Jean Jacket trying to consume the balloon.

Just after she’s got a perfect shot, the balloon explodes within Jean Jacket, killing the monster. In the end, she spots OJ safe and sound. With the photo captured and with the monster dead, all is supposedly well.

A modern Jaws, Nope to me is a film about the impossibility of taming nature and the extremes to which humanity strives just for spectacle, even if it comes at the cost of life.

Is Nope (2022) worth watching?

Yes. A brilliant achievement in the neo-Western horror space, Nope does a lot of things that are the perfect recipe for a classic.

From its technical achievements at capturing nighttime horror to its epic depiction of the alien Jean Jacket as a nightmarish angel out of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nope is as cinematic as it is entertaining. If I’m being honest, it’s the Jean Jacket that really took the cake for me. From its unexplained physiognomy and origin, to our characters’ very realistic reaction that echoes the spirit of our times, the monster was just… chef’s kiss

Nope—arguably—might be Jordan Peele’s best film. In my opinion.

In Conclusion:

Nope (2022) to me was a modern Jaws with aliens. A brilliant film with all the makings of a classic, this one is a must-watch.

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• The Age of Disclosure (2025) | Brain Rot Masquerading as a Documentary
• 28 Years Later (2025)
• Nobody 2 (2025) | Film Review
• The Thursday Murder Club (2025) | Film Review
• Weapons (2025) | Film Review
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17 | Review | Episodes Ranked
• Island of the Dying Goddess

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Until next time!