Jordan Peele finally explains most confusing moment in ‘Nope’
Jordan Peele has explained the significance of the shoe in his latest film, Nope.
Directed by Peele, the sci-fi horror film follows horse-wrangling siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) who encounter a UFO near their Californian ranch.
During the film, it’s revealed that Jupe (Steven Yeun) is the survivor of a chimp attack on the set of a sitcom he starred in as a child. While his cast mates are attacked by Gordy the chimp, Jupe hides under a table and focuses on a shoe that’s balanced perfectly upright.
The shoe is later seen displayed in Jupe’s tribute room dedicated to the sitcom, titled Gordy’s Home, where it’s still in the upright position.
While the meaning behind the upright shoe has been a source of speculation since Nope released in August last year, Peele addressed the item’s significance during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“The shoe represents a moment where we check out of a trauma,” Peele said. “And Jupe, he zones in on this little shoe, that’s Mary Jo’s shoe, that has landed in a precarious, odd situation. And this is the moment he disassociates.”
The director explained that this also ties into Nope’s theme of a “bad miracle”, referred to early on by Kaluuya’s character. “In one way, it’s the impossible shot. It’s the impossible moment.”
Speaking to host Josh Horowitz, he added: “Yes, it’s a bad miracle. Very good. You got it. You got the shoe.”
In a four-star review, NME wrote: “There’s something pleasingly off-kilter about the way Nope hops between genres. It’s often very funny, but not exactly a comedy; it induces shivers of fear without tilting all the way into horror – and Peele remains especially adept at bending one genre backward until it flips unexpectedly into another.”
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