A Quiet Place
When I was making my list of “40 Films That Shaped My First 40 Years” last year as I approached the big 4-0, I had a few choices to make of what movies made the cut. One was a decision of which movie best represented my early viewing of R-rated action and horror movies, and it was between “Friday the 13th” and “Predator.” I ended up choosing “Predator,” partially because I’ve always liked it more, on the whole, but more because of the fantastic mano a mano between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch and the Predator at the end, which is one of my favorite sequences in film ever. I love the way John McTiernan stages that cat-and-mouse showdown, using everything Dutch has discovered about the alien to make a sequence for the ages. John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” is, basically, a 90-minute version of that sequence, and I enjoyed every minute.
The film begins with the Abbott family (played by Krasinski, his real-life wife Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds as their deaf daughter Regan, Noah Jupe as Marcus, and Cade Woodward as Beau) scavenging for food and supplies at an abandoned general store. They are using sign language to communicate, and careful to make a sound, even when young Beau tries to get a toy space shuttle. Krasinski’s Lee says no, but Regan sneaks it to Beau as they leave to go home. They follow a trail of sand to their home, but are stopped when Beau cannot help himself, and turns the shuttle on. They stop in their tracks, and Lee races to get his son. You’ve seen this scene in the trailer; turns out this is Day 89 since the creatures first arrived and started killing people. We then cut to Day 472, and Blunt’s Evelyn is pregnant. Beau is gone, and Lee is trying to teach Marcus how to survive and protect the family. Regan, meanwhile, feels alone, and blames herself for Beau being gone.
As we see the daily routine of the Abbotts at their farm home, it’s interesting to realize that Krasinski and his co-writers, Bryan Woods and Scott Beck (who came up with the original story), haven’t even set the “hows” and “whys” and “whats” of the creatures, and why the Abbotts behaved the way they did until the very end of that first sequence, so unless you saw the trailers, you wouldn’t really know what’s going on. This is actually kind of refreshing for an era of film that feels like it needs to explain everything to the audience, even if it means cumbersome storytelling, although really good films understand how to put exposition into a film naturally, and what is fine to leave out. “A Quiet Place” is a really good film, and even if we never find out where the creatures came from, we don’t really need to, because this is all about the Abbotts struggling to survive. The creatures could be a real-life predator that shares the same traits that the family needs to be careful of, and the rules would still be the same- the fact that it’s something not of the real-world as we know it doesn’t matter, and we don’t need long, drawn-out explanations of where it came from, because the Abbotts don’t need that information. In addition to “Predator,” the film also has much in common with M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs,” which also took a microscopic look at a larger event by focusing on a single family dealing with the uncertainty that event represents. The isolation is palpable, and it makes the situation the Abbotts are in all that more intense.
When my wife, sister-in-law, and her friend and I came out of the movie last night, I made the comment that it really made sense to me that Krasinski would cast his real-life wife as his partner in this movie. While the character certainly could have been played by another actress (it’s a pretty standard role, if I’m being honest), having Blunt in the role means an added depth to the dynamic between Lee and Evelyn that just wouldn’t have been there with another actress, and Krasinski and Blunt can really play off of their own real-life emotions of what they would feel in a situation like this, making that connection between the characters that much stronger. Both of them have their moments, certainly, but I feel like the MVP is Simmonds as Regan. For a character unable to say anything outside of sign language, she projects much with her physicality that makes you meltdown with sympathy for her as she carries the guilt over what happened to Beau with her every day, and wants to do right by her family. She’ll also hold the key to how the Abbotts are able to survive, by the end of the movie, and trust me, it’s a lot smarter than how “Signs” wrapped things up.
As I’ve studied more and more about the horror genre, in particular, I’ve felt like horror is the genre that has missed the silent era of cinema the most. When sound, and especially dialogue, came into the equation, horror lost a lot of its strength as a genre of nightmares. Silence is a powerful storytelling and creative tool for people of any medium save for the written word, whether it’s music or theatre or television or radio or cinema, and the value of silence is not explored enough, especially in the horror genre. Some people have done so to brilliant effect, however- Stanley Kubrick’s use of sound in “The Shining,” Joss Whedon taking his character’s voices in the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode, “Hush”- and “A Quiet Place” belongs in that rarefied company. Silence emphasizes sound when it happens, and while the sound mix and sound design is hardly revolutionary for “A Quiet Place,” the film utilizes its premise to maximum effect as each sound that’s made (or not made, like a scream where any normal person would) is that much more impactful, as it could draw the creatures to you. It’s also catnip for composers, and the score by Marco Beltrami is subtle, but effective when it appears.
It feels like I’m describing a great film here, but I don’t know that I would call “A Quiet Place” great, exactly. It’s definitely going to be one of the best horror movies of the year, and it’s a very fine execution of concept (as well as a triumph for Krasinski as a director), but I wonder how much repeat value it will have outside of the theatre, where a crowd will be holding its breath not to ruin the experience for others. I’m sure I’ll find out for myself, sometime, because I’m sure to watch it again down the road.
