Him is directed by Justin Tipping, and produced by Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions. and the cast includes Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker.
My Thoughts on Him
Him is a movie that I knew going in was going to go big in terms of boldness, but I didn’t realize just how bold it would be, and quite quickly it became apparent that Justin Tipping is not interested in playing it safe.
There’s an ambition here that’s impossible to ignore, even when the film struggles to follow through, with some ideas feeling fully formed, while others feel like they were still being figured out while the cameras were rolling, which made for a frustrating watch overall.
In terms of genre, Him is part horror, part sports drama, and part social commentary, as the movie refuses to stay in any single lane, and I thought the way it leaned into visual storytelling over conventional narrative was very daring.
Scenes are designed to make you feel something before you think about what you’re seeing, and while I can appreciate that, I also felt like I was constantly scrambling to catch up, and by the midpoint, the story feels almost secondary to the world Tipping is creating, which is dazzling in moments but exhausting in others.
There’s also a long list of themes here at play too, but the film rarely stops to explore these ideas in much depth, as it ends up more like a series of striking observations than an argument, and part of me wished Tipping had lingered a little longer on any one of them, as I wanted to understand, not just witness.
Still, some of the points do land, such as the way young athletes are groomed, the ritualistic devotion to games and players, the sacrifices demanded in the name of glory - all very heavy-handed, but effective.
Then there’s Marlon Wayans as Isaiah White, and I really didn’t expect him to carry so much of the film, but he does. Isaiah is a superstar quarterback, but there’s something in his performance that’s magnetic and terrifying at the same time.
Every scene he’s in works well because he’s the kind of presence that makes you forget about anything else happening on screen, and Wayans just nails it superbly.
Then we have Tyriq Withers, who plays Cameron Cane, the young athlete meant to be Isaiah’s successor, and at first, it's hard to connect with him, but as the story moves forward, you start to feel the weight of what he’s going through.
The bootcamp Isaiah puts him through is tough, with grinding workouts, and the physical and psychological pressure Cam faces is relentless, with the movie never sugarcoating the cost of chasing greatness.
The visuals were the best part of the movie though. Some scenes are warped, almost hallucinatory, and combined with Bobby Krlic’s score, they create an unpredictable atmosphere, and I really liked the way the cinematography amplified the sense that Cam is entering a world both familiar and completely alien.
The desert compound, the endless drills, the way the light falls across Isaiah’s face, it all adds to the sense that something is deeply off.
By the final act, the film hits full throttle, with plenty of chaos, watching Cam and Isaiah spiral toward an ending that is messy, bloody, and chaotic, and it was a moment where the movie finally embraced its own madness.
But while I didn’t find every choice perfect, and some things certainly frustrated me, there is a kind of exhilaration in just letting it go, and while the climax isn’t tidy, it is a wild exclamation point to everything the film had been building toward.
Him is definitely a flawed movie, a bit messy with too many themes, and a narrative that sometimes feels like it’s running on instinct, but it’s also brave, uncompromising, and visually daring, and I think it's a film I appreciated more than I enjoyed.