What does it mean, though, that Em does get the shot? This thing that was supposed to be unattainable, this thing we’ve never seen, this thing that has eluded photographers for ages… Was Antlers wrong? (Lesson learned, never trust a guy who shows up to a shoot in a David Rose-like hoodie he will charge straight into an alien’s mouth, handheld camera in-hand, with all the groundbreaking footage he just shot for you.)
(Does Antlers mean the dream can never be achieved-or that a person who has attained it cannot go back to the person they were before? And what is “the dream,” anyway? Fame itself, or the recognition and adoration that some associate with fame?) Whatever they mean, they seem to unsettle Em, but not enough to dissuade her from her version of “The Dream.” It’s time to get that “Oprah shot.” The words are just vague enough to invite speculation. The siblings smell a business opportunity: If they can get a good shot of this thing (say, an angle spectacular enough to get them a spot on Oprah) they reckon their lives could really turn around for the better.īut when Em reaches out to venerated nature cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), he bursts her bubble in an instant: “This dream you’re chasing… where you end up at the top of the mountain?… It’s the one you never wake up from.”
Nope takes off when Em and her brother OJ (Kaluuya) realize that an apparent UFO has been hovering above their financially imperiled horse ranch for months.
The advice strikes at the heart of the film’s ideas about spectacle and brutality, and it becomes even more fascinating in context of the film’s ending. Early on in the film, however, she receives a warning that seems to rattle her resolve at least a little. Keke Palmer’s Nope heroine, Emerald Haywood, struts through life with a charismatic, ineffable confidence that dares the world to question her.