A Quiet Place (2018)
A family lives an isolated existence in utter
silence, for fear of an unknown threat that follows and attacks at any
sound.
Director:
John KrasinskiStars:
Country:
USARelease Date:
6 April 2018 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Um Lugar Silencioso See more »Company Credits
Production Co:
John Krasinski’s
“A Quiet Place” is a nerve-shredder. It’s a movie designed to make you
an active participant in a game of tension, not just a passive observer
in an unfolding horror. Most of the great horror movies are so because
we become actively invested in the fate of the characters and involved
in the cinematic exercise playing out before us. It is a tight thrill
ride—the kind of movie that quickens the heart rate and plays with the
expectations of the audience, while never treating them like idiots. In
other words, it’s a really good horror movie.
With his script, co-written by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, Krasinski wastes no time. We see a family—Krasinski plays the unnamed father, his real-life wife Emily Blunt plays the mother, and Noah Jupe (“Suburbicon”), Millicent Simmonds (“Wonderstruck”), and Cade Woodward
play their three children. The eldest, the girl, is deaf (as is the
remarkable young actress who plays her). A title card says it’s “Day
89,” and we can tell we’re in a recently-post-apocalyptic world. The
family very slowly—on tiptoes—moves around a small-town store,
taking some of the few remaining supplies and some prescription drugs
for the older boy, who looks like he has the flu. They communicate in
sign language and are incredibly careful not to make a sound, but the
youngest boy draws a picture of a rocket on the floor—the thing that he
signs will take them all away.
We quickly discern that sound
in this world is dangerous. And the danger is intensified in the
following sequence as the youngest child finds a toy that makes noise
and ... things don’t end well. The bulk of “A Quiet Place” takes place
over a year later, as the family continues to grieve and the mother is
about 38 weeks pregnant. Preparing for the arrival of a newborn baby in a
world without noise is difficult, and the father continues to pore over
newspaper articles and research, looking for a way to stop the
creatures that kill at the slightest sound.
Larger-than-life
enemies that can detect their prey aurally have been a part of great
cinema for years, from the xenomorph hunting the crew of the Nostromo in
“Alien” to the dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park,”
and Krasinski knows that lineage. He’s incredibly smart about the way
he brings the viewer into this auditory game. He’s regularly—but not too
regularly—setting up what could be called 'auditory expectations.'
He’ll show us a shotgun or an exposed nail in the floor or a timer in
silence—and we know full well what sounds those are likely to produce.
Don’t worry—Krasinski doesn’t overplay it at all. There aren’t rooms of
wind chimes or broken glass. It’s a very subtle, clever storytelling
tool to build tension when a director and his co-screenwriters aren’t
allowed to use dialogue to do so, and it pulls us into this world in a
way that's unexpected and incredibly enjoyable.
It also helps that Krasinski displays a sense of composition and
economic storytelling that he hasn’t really before in other films. “A
Quiet Place” is a no-nonsense, lean movie—the best kind when it comes to
thrillers. It feels like every shot has been considered incredibly
carefully as the film ticks like a clock on a bomb, perfectly balancing
scares with scenes that set up the emotional stakes and the world of
these characters. The film has a beautiful sense of geography, almost
all of it taking place on a farm that Krasinski and his technical team
lay out in a way that allows us to feel like we know it. This is not one
of those films that mistakes shaky camerawork for horror storytelling.
It’s got a refined visual language that plays beautifully with
perspective and the terrifying nature of a world in which we can’t yell
to warn/find people or, in the case of the deaf daughter, hear what’s
coming.
On that note, there’s also—without spoiling anything—a
strong, enabling message at the core of “A Quiet Place.” It’s a film
that’s about empowerment more than sheltering, and it’s that emotional
hook that really elevates the final act. It helps a great deal that
Krasinski completely sticks the landing. It has one of the best final
shots in horror in years—and, of course, it comes with a familiar
auditory cue that had the audience here at SXSW cheering.
With
almost no dialogue, “A Quiet Place” relies a great deal on visual
storytelling, but I'll admit that it also uses the crutches of composer
Marco Beltrami's strings for jump scares a bit too much. It’s total
conjecture, but one can almost sense Platinum Dunes head Michael Bay
insisting on those devices, and I’d love to see a version of “A Quiet
Place” that’s even sparser in terms of on-the-nose choices like
sound-scares and an overheated score.
We live in a such a noisy
world that it’s hard to imagine that constant sound being taken away. We
use noise to express ourselves—it’s a part of who we are as people. And
“A Quiet Place” weaponizes that part of the human condition in a way
that owes a debt to films like “Alien” but also charts its own new
ground. So many great horror films are about people who have to adapt to
survive—they have to challenge their own insecurities or preconceptions
to make it through the night. In that sense, great horror films are
often about empowerment, taking away that which some might perceive as
weak. “A Quiet Place” shreds the nerves, but it does so in a way that
feels rewarding. You don’t just walk out having experienced a thrill
ride, you walk out on a high, the kind of high that only comes from the
best horror movies.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
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