Re:tro Re:view - A Quiet Place!

A Quiet Place made me think of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, a film that is bold creates it’s own world, in this case apocalyptic, that centers around a family, from a director that I never expected would direct.  This film is of course about silence and well known for hushed audiences, there was a guy in the back munching loudly.  For this alone, A Quiet Place is you must-go-to-the-theater experience.  The film is of course directed by John Krasinski who of course is known for playing Jim on The Office, never really watched that show, but this has great promise for a directing career for Krasinski.

The screenplay is by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck.  They worked on the thriller Nightlight (2015). Krasinski is also a co-writer, he went in and changed the ending, and re-worked some of the characters.  I’ve watched some interviews to see how this film got made.  It opens in Day 59, some two months after an event that has resulted in a deserted town.  It is quiet with the wind blowing leaves on the street of this town.  The other part of this film is that nothing is really identified.  We pick up on what is happening gradually through the movie. We get a general store, a family is there including the mother (Emily Blunt) silently picking up medicine for a sick child, a boy (Noah Jupe).

Another kid (Cade Woodward) wants to get a space shuttle toy, almost knocks it down, to be caught by a girl, (Millicent Simmonds).  He signs that he thinks a rocket will take them away.  The bearded father (Krasinski) doesn’t want him to have the toy since it makes sounds and takes out the batteries.  The girl sees the boy is disappointed at leaving the toy and she gives him the space shuttle.  He snatches up the batteries.  They start walking back, there is white sand that muffles their footsteps, and start across a bridge.  Then, the space shuttle toy goes off, the father panics, and runs toward the boy.  He is snatched by a black creature.  This is a shocking beginning.  Krasinski reworked this as the beginning instead of a flashback.  Then, it shifts to the current time, about a year later at the family farm.

At the end of the film, we get the Abbott mailbox so let’s get into identifying the characters from their credits.  The girl, Regan, is a deaf actress, and she is incredible in conveying everything without speaking.  I can’t wait to see Simmonds' next film.  They are playing Monopoly with felt pieces from a sewing kit, it is not uncomfortable silence since now we know what is at stake making noise.  We get the normal routine, the father, Lee, works in his padded basement on his daughter’s cochlear implant, but it doesn’t work.  There we also see on Lee’s board that the creatures are blind, invulnerable, and there are three of them seen.  The other discovery is that the mother, Evelyn, is pregnant with another child.  I actually didn’t assume that the kids were the children, I had the idea that the parents could have taken in these lost children, but no, they are the Abbott son and daughter.

The caring and peril that the mother gets into a fantastic look at Blunt’s acting and we get her paired with her real life husband.  This film is really about a family and what parents will do for it. There is a scene where the two kids are playing at night, a lantern is knocked over, and Lee rushes over to smother the flames, all shot real.  The tension of daily living without trying to make sounds is all cleverly worked out.  Another scene has Lee on top of a roof lighting a fire which other signal fires start popping up far in the valley.  So there are survivors.  At no point did I think that there would be some outside force to come in and save the family.  It is a survival story on a basic level. The movie uses some horror movie tropes so they work, not showing weakness in the script.

Lastly, the creatures, they have an unknown origin, but Krasinski recently revealed where they came from which I suspected from what was shown in the movie.  They look basically like the Demigorgon in Stranger Things; thin, with wicked claws.  The interesting part is the closeup of their ears which trembles and slides with sounds. Their threat is ever present though we don’t know where they rest or spend their time.  It is so tense that every moment you identify with the family members and want them to somehow pull through.  I never found sound and sound design more important in a film than this one.  In the end, the film is not about an apocalypse or monsters, it is really a story about family.  I really hope everyone goes out and experiences A Quiet Place.

Five Cochlear Implants out of Five!

#AQuietPlace, #JohnKrasinki, #EmilyBlunt, #MillicentSimmonds