A Quiet Place (2018)

    Rule #1: Don't make a sound.  Rule #2: Never leave the path.  Rule #3: Red means run.

   

Happy Halloween Eve to those who celebrate!   

Life is full of noise. I often take it for granted and I'm sure many other do as well. When we do stop and pay attention to our surroundings it can surprise us on how powerful and ever-present sound is. My fan is on and is quite loud in the otherwise quiet room. My fingers making deafening impacts on my keyboard as I write. Cars and motorcycles are always background noise. It's almost unnerving and even overwhelming when you really stop to listen to everything. I don't live in a rural setting but at the same time I find it difficult imagining living in a large capital city like London, Paris or Washington, D.C. Life is already chaotic enough without millions of blaring car horns and a constant stream of sensory information.

     With that in mind, let's have a (very quiet) chat on today's movie: A Quiet Place. Spoilers are contained so read at your own risk! By the way, I'm already predicting that this'll be a fairly long review due to how much I enjoy this film. 

     A Quiet Place was released on April 6, 2018. It has a small cast, only 7 people, and stars John Krasinski as Lee Abbott and Emily Blunt (Krasinski's real life wife) as his wife Evelyn Abbott. The Abbotts have 3 children, oldest daughter Regan, who is deaf, (played by Millicent Simmonds who is also deaf) Marcus, (played by Noah Jupe) and Beau (played by Cade Woodward). 

    A Quiet Place puts us in the setting of upstate New York in a abandoned town. The first scene starts with an ominous subtitle: Day 89. The Abbott family is searching for medicine in a store for Marcus who is sick. Beau finds a electronic space shuttle toy while Lee is searching for electronic parts for unknown purposes. The audience knows something is very wrong when the family reacts in horror to Beau almost reaching for batteries to power the toy. On their way out of the store, walking on sand paths that they've created to lessen the sound of the journey, the Abbott's hear a deafening electronic wail and discover that Beau has recovered the batteries and powered the toy. Lee rushes for Beau but in an instant Beau is snatched away and killed by a large monster.

        All this exposition in 10 minutes of movie time and achieved with no dialogue! Truly a interesting approach to film. Anyway let's get back to the plot. The family makes the journey back to their house and through newspaper articles and a big whiteboard in the basement it's seen that Lee has been making extensive notes of their current situation: Many major cities have been destroyed by possibly extraterrestrial armor plated creatures that are attracted by sound. The various world militaries have failed to stop them. It's revealed that Lee was gathering electronic parts to help make their radio signal stronger so they can signal for help. He's also trying to repair Regan's broken cochlear implant.

        The family does everything they can to be as silent as possible. They communicate using sign language and eat meals with leaves as plates. They plaster walls and stick newspaper on them to somewhat soundproof the room. 

       Time passes and we find ourselves on day 472. The family is trying to get past Beau's death, with Regan in particular tormented by her choice of giving the toy back to Beau without thinking he could reach the batteries. Evelyn is heavily pregnant, past due in fact. Evelyn's water breaks and she has to give birth while the creatures lay siege to their farm.

            A Quiet Place is unique in that it shows you the monsters almost immediately. They don't "hide the shark" like in Jaws (1975). Logically this should lessen the dread factor but instead increases because it makes the viewer aware of the danger early on. The fact that they kill a child early on in the film definitely raises the stakes. 

        The sound design in A Quiet Place is phenomenal, from the ambient sounds of the forest in which the Abbotts live, to the complete lack of sound when we're in Regan's perspective. Silence is certainly deafening in this movie. Interesting tidbit: The monster's clicking sounds (very reminiscent of the Velociraptor's claws clicking on the kitchen floor in Jurassic Park) were produced by slowing down the cracks and zaps of a fired taser. 

    The creature design is also very good with the aliens (which look like a cross of the Demogorgon from Stranger Things and the Acklay spider-looking creature from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. They move with an unnerving smoothness with just enough jerkiness to make them seem just... tremendously creepy.

    A Quiet Place was directed by John Krasinski and while some movies that have the director having a main role are just... bad, Krasinski does a very good job. You can tell it was a labor of love for him. Krasinski also co-wrote the film along with Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. 

    Marco Beltrami did the music and he did fantastic with songs like "A Quiet Family" particularly standing out to me. It's so beautifully simple and yet discordant and eerie. It puts me on edge every single time I hear it.  Charlotte Bruus was Director of Photography. I love the cinematography in this film, with its pans across the landscape, lingering on shots just long enough to make the viewer uncomfortable and then frenetic pace without resorting to overusing the tactic of "shaky cam."  Granted, shaky cam can work to heighten the tension if done right.

    Now the performances. These are the highlight of the film for me. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are of course amazing and play off their natural chemistry (being married in real life) to really make their love believable. They will also sacrifice anything to keep their children safe. 

    Speaking of the children, child actors can bring unpredictable performances to the set, whether they seem lifeless or extremely enthusiastic, sometimes obnoxiously so. Fortunately, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward pleasantly surprised me with the level of maturity and pure acting talent they possess. The vast majority of this movie's interactions between characters is with facial dialogue and emoting and they do it very well, whether it's showing happiness, terror or despair.

   A Quiet Place did well at the box office. The budget was $17 million dollars and in the US and Canada and made around $50 million dollars in the first two weeks of running. It went on to net about $350 million dollars in all.

    The film won several awards including Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role and the Saturn Award for Best Horror film and Best writing.  It also was nominated for  both a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) in Best Sound and an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Sound Editing.

    A Quiet Place is a horror or "scary movie" for sure but it's also an effective drama and thriller as well. You get the standard jump scares of course (they don't feel cheap and unearned which is refreshing) but you also get lots of emotional grieving scenes and beautiful bonding between the family as they try to survive their situation. It has great sound and visual effects. The music is fantastic. It's an all around good film. Go see this film if you haven't already!

Ok that's all my thoughts for this movie.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Conrad Smith