Originally published April 8, 2018 on FrontRowCentral.com
When television came on the scene, Hollywood took it as an insult, rolling out ever more extravagant gimmicks and features to get butts back in the seats. CinemaScope, 3D features, Smell-O-Vision; anything to lure people away from their TVs. There was even that one year where Warner Bros. stopped filming movies all together and took actors on roadshows to perform their scripts town to town. Most of these gimmicks are still around in one form or another, but cinema’s greatest champion will always be a damn good movie.
Which brings us to A Quiet Place. This is a film that practically demands to be experienced in a theater. Not only does it offer an expertly crafted horror tale that captures your whole attention, but the spell it casts on a packed house is kind of remarkable. From frame one, A Quiet Place puts an otherwise chatty and boisterous Friday night audience into a state of absolute silence. I’m about to explain to you why the movie itself is great, but you should see it for no other reason than to see a movie tell its audience to shut the fuck up and then see that audience actually listen.
The situation is explained in short order: Humanity has been decimated by alien creatures that hunt based on sound. Anything louder than a whisper brings these monsters out of the woodwork, cutting a person down in one swipe from their razor sharp claws. The film follows one family’s attempt to survive this post-apocalyptic hellscape, living on a farm in complete and utter silence. Lee Abbott (co-writer/director/Jim from The Office John Krasinski) has a strained relationship with his deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), whose hearing aid is on the fritz with no hope of repair. Meanwhile, Lee’s wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is preparing to give birth. Their son Marcus (Noah Jupe) is terrified of anything that makes a sound, which honestly isn’t that crucial to the plot, but it gives him something to do to remind us he’s there.
This is first and foremost a tale of survival. We spend much of the film’s first half learning how the Abbotts live. Lee lays out paths of sand for his family to silently traverse the farm; Evelyn has learned how to quietly cook meals using a steamer under the floorboards of the house; much of the films’ dialogue is relayed through sign language (and subtitles, in case you’re not up on your ASL). The specter of death looms over everything the family does, and certain portions of the film are so quiet that even hearing a pin drop sends your heart racing. Once the monsters set upon the Abbott home, the mood shifts into a more traditional monster movie, complete with loud-ass jump scares and a score that blasts you with the deafening sound of your own heartbeat.
But there’s more behind this monster flick than just clever jump scares and a pretty good gimmick. (Admittedly, the gimmick is very good.) Underneath the Abbotts’ fears of being cut to shreds by giant alien scissors is a family in the throes of grief. How can a family that has failed to protect its loved ones possibly bring a new life into the world? What kind of a world will their children inherit? These questions, never outright spoken, obviously weigh on Lee and Evelyn. Too often, tales of post-apocalyptic families try to address these issues, only to fumble on the answers. A Quiet Place never comes right out and says these things, but ever so slightly makes its world more and more bleak. Where once Lee could light a bonfire and see neighbors’ bonfires lit in the distance, soon his is the only one still lit, signaling death all around. It’s a small touch, but good lord is it effective.
Speaking of which, John Krasinski’s attention to detail as a director is impressive. The set designs his team put together paint a complete picture of how this family has to live. The whole farm is rigged with strands of lights that switch from white to red to signal danger. We see painted spots on the floor to show the children which floorboards and steps don’t squeak. Everything, right down to the myriad newspaper clippings detailing this apocalypse feel perfectly organized and thought out. It’s a masterpiece of design.
And hey, the movie is a whole lot of fun too! Despite the fact that not a single line of dialogue is spoken until well into the second act (37 minutes into this 90 minute movie, to be precise), A Quiet Place does an amazing job of communicating its story through visual cues and knowing glances between characters. The film cribs all the right notes from M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, as well as a couple cues from Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, but for the most part, A Quiet Place is a wholly unique cinematic experience. See this one in the theater, and take the chattiest asshole you know. Watch ‘em squirm.
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