10 Horror Movie Scenes Everyone Always Gets Wrong
5. The Cause Of Adelaide's Voice Is Primarily Psychological, Not Physical - Us
What Everyone Thinks
In Jordan Peele's Us, the audience spends most of the movie wondering why Adelaide's (Lupita Nyong'o) doppelganger Red speaks with such an unsettlingly hoarse voice - or really, speaks at all, given that her fellow doppelgangers don't possess the ability to say much of anything.
It's of course revealed at film's end that Red was actually the real Adelaide all along, having been attacked, throttled, and forcibly switched with Red in childhood.
Though Peele doesn't explain it directly, the implication seems to be that Adelaide's scratchy, croaky voice is a result of physical trauma from being strangled by Red as a child.
Why It's Wrong
As much as this seems to track on the surface, the operating cause of her bizarre vocalisation actually appears to be psychological in nature.
Lupita Nyong'o has stated in interviews that she based Adelaide's voice on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder which causes spasms of the larynx and generates hoarse vocalisations as a result.
Though research into spasmodic dysphonia continues to this today, it is generally accepted to impact the central nervous system and stem from extreme psychological trauma.
It goes without saying that being attacked by a secret underground doppelganger and left for dead would cover it. That's not to say the strangling didn't have any effect on Adelaide's voice at all, but the overarching cause is psychological, not physical.