A Quiet Place
Premise - The world has been taken over by monsters who kill the moment they hear a sound. Those who survived the apocalypse must live in complete silence. A family who lost a child to the monsters is now pregnant again with another child, and has to figure out how to give birth and raise a baby while remaining in total silence.
Review - It'll be difficult to not make this review a comparison to Bird Box because I just saw that film as well, and they have very similar themes and premises. Know that conceptually they may be similar, but artistically they are incredibly different.
I wish I had the chance to see this in theaters. It does something so revolutionary - make a film so utterly quiet - that seeing it in a large crowd must have been such an odd experience. I heard that people were afraid to sneeze or eat their popcorn. I saw it with only one other person, and yet she was afraid to eat her food while we were watching. As a byproduct of silence, the film also creates such stillness in its audience. Especially that opening scene, my goodness! Of course, the film balances out by having its moments of music, loud jump scares, and the like. Aurally, the film was a masterpiece.
The story is what I have a difficult time reconciling given how I saw this immediately after Bird Box, which checks off so many of my desired plot tropes. Because of the title, A Quiet Place I had thought that the family had somehow traveled to a specific place that they couldn't escape because it had to be so quiet, and the film was about returning to normality. I didn't realize this was a post-apocalyptic world and they could not escape the quiet, but merely survive within it. Once that struck me, I thought it perhaps might be like Bird Box which cuts back and forth between the post-apocalyptic world, and the apocalyptic origin story. It does not. There is no origin story. Things just are the way they are. Not that an origin story is absolutely necessary, but I was just somewhat surprised. I quite liked that feature of Bird Box.
The other structural surprise was the ending. Bird Box (spoiler alert) had a conclusive, reasonably happy ending. A Quiet Place ends mid-scene. Literally. When the film ended I was just frustrated. It was creative, in that it leaves the conclusion of the final battle up to the audience imagination, but my blood pressure and heart rate were still so high I just needed some form of resolution. (85/100)
Quote - HAHA this is a funny category because there aren't very many spoken lines. But I'll have to go with the classic, "Who are we if we can't protect them? We have to protect them."
What to watch for - I'll tell you what NOT to watch for first - THAT NAIL. Scariest part of the whole movie. Way more terrifying than the monsters.
The scene that really makes this film is the one where Emily Blunt's character goes into labor and gives birth while being forced to remain silent. Everything about the premise is just horrifying, and then Emily Blunt's acting was some of the best I've ever seen.
If you enjoyed this movie, I'd recommend Bird Box!
Directed by John Krasinski
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
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