I'm British, and aware that it is doubly true that some of the commentary about race relations here are specific to America, where the legacy of slavery is something that actually happened in America rather than being too hurriedly dismissed as something that happened in distant colonies, and also that a great deal of it is universal commentary on race relations that very much applies here too.
The film is seen from the perspective of Chris, a nice, likeable, ordinary black man who is nervous about meeting his white girlfriend's very white family and turns out to be very, very justified. And yet said family is not overtly racist- there are no white hoods here and I have absolutely no doubt that Dean Armitage would indeed have voted for Obama a third time if he could. These are people who would be genuinely upset to be thought of as racist and a little too anxious to prove their non-racism in not-very-subtle ways. And yet, as the film points out, these people have seldom met a black person who didn't work for them.
All this happens with a grainy picture an a directorial style which is at once superb and very much employing the unsettling visual grammar of the horror film. The intensity of the hypnotism scene is terrifying, as is the later framing of Georgina's face in a creepy and highly effective scene, a triumph of both actress and director. This is horror by unease rather than jump cuts.
Even the final reveal of what is going on works perfectly as metaphor; the family may want to lobotomise young black people so their grandparents can use their younger bodies, but the racism here is far from overt but more of a metaphor for cultural appropriation and all the subtle, unthinking exploitation that we white liberals almost certainly undertake all the time. An outstanding and thought provoking film.
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