This article contains spoilers for “Get Out.”
It was one of the great movie moments of 2017, in one of the great movies of 2017. At the end of “Get Out,” as our hero (Daniel Kaluuya) was trying to strangle his evil white supremacist girlfriend (Allison Williams), a cop car suddenly showed up. You could hear stomachs tense up throughout the theater, everyone sighing a collective “Here we go…” And then there was that eight-ton megabomb of a release: It wasn’t a racist white cop about to plug him, but his rent-a-cop friend (Lil Rey Howery), there to save the day.
Well, turned out we dodged a bullet. The forthcoming Blu-ray release of “Get Out” (in stores May 23) comes with an alternate ending — and of course it offers no happy release. In fact, it will ruin your day.
No, it’s not as bottomlessly grim as you’d expect. Yes, there are white cops this time. But at least they don’t shoot him. So there’s that? Instead, they knock Kaluuya’s Andre to the ground, and after a cut to black, we learn he wound up in jail. The final scene finds Andre talking to Howery’s Rod through prison glass. He looks defeated, weary; when Rod tries to get him to re-open the case, Andre simply says, “I’m good.” Peele makes sure to show a line of prisoners, all talking to visitors, all of them African-American.
Still, there’s a kernel of positivity — sort of. As Rod looks on, despondent over his incarcerated friend, Andre proudly says, “I stopped it, you know? I stopped it.” It’s a bittersweet note to end on, though far more bitter than sweet.
You could argue this is the downer ending “Get Out” required. Peele’s monster hit is a pitilessly honest state of the union, one that may have needed a bleak-o-rama ’70s Hollywood movie capper. But in this case, the improbable happy ending was perfect. Peele takes us into the dark, dark heart of America, and the only decent thing to do was leave us with hope. We might feel like we deserve hope in real life, but at least we can get it at the movies.
You can watch this sad thing below:
Follow Matt Prigge on Twitter @mattprigge
