Film is first and foremost a visual medium. In fact, it wasn’t
until 30 years in its life as a medium that sound came into the picture. But since it’s
become the norm for the past 89 years, relinquishing it has become a way to
really test your chops as a filmmaker. Sometimes it results in a gimmicky
throwback like The Artist, other
times that absence can be used to its advantage, like in A Quiet Place.
Our story is set after Earth is invaded by alien creatures
who hunt with sound. We follow a family consisting of a father (John Krasinski)
and mother (Emily Blunt), their son (Noah Jupe), and deaf daughter (Millicent
Simmonds), who must survive in a farmhouse without making as little sound as
possible, as the beasts can detect even the slightest noise from miles away. They
already lost one child to the monsters, and they don’t intend on losing the
others. They communicate through sign language, soundproof their house, and generally
try to make it to the next day undetected. But when the new baby arrives, that
doesn’t become as simple as it sounds.
Horror and thriller movies often like to play with the
contrast between deafening silence and cacophonic noise, but A Quiet Place takes it to a whole other
level, turning sound, film’s first great invader, into a threat. It reminded me
a bit of Don’t Breathe, a horror
movie from two years ago where noise also spelled death, but done on a much
grander scale. We don’t know exactly what these creatures are or where they
come from, but the focus is the extent this family goes to avoid them. Having
raised a deaf daughter, they already have an edge over their neighbors, but it
still rewrites their entire lifestyle, to the point the have to walk on paths
of sand when they go outside, eat without plates or cutlery, replace their Monopoly
pieces with cotton balls, and something as inconspicuous as a loose nail could
mean danger. The absence of sound is especially utilized in two moments that I
can only describe as “the silent birth” and “suicide by scream”.
For a movie that’s so heavily centered on silence, the sound
engineering here is highly sophisticated, but in this case, it needs to be. It does
rely on the occasional sudden jolt in volume, but there were moments where
everything was so still and quiet that I could even hear the humming of the air
conditioner in the theater. It’s especially noticeable whenever Krasinski is
talking to the daughter, or when she’s the only person in frame, where even all
ambient noise is cut. Although they are silent for the majority of the film,
they do play fast and loose with the rules a bit. During a hunting trip, the
father takes his son to a waterfall where they can speak without being
detected, and it’s the one place where they can break their silence. It’s kind
of a cheat, but it’s a clever cheat.
I always believed that the best way to test an actor’s
abilities is to put them in a non-speaking role, and the main cast passes with
flying colors. Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (who also directed and co-wrote
this movie) have been one of Hollywood’s most popular power couples for a while
now and it’s surprising that they never worked together up until this point,
but their chemistry really shows through. The movie is open to plenty of interpretation,
so one can’t be blamed for reading it as a metaphor for famous parents trying
to provide their children with a normal life. Of course, Krasinki has nine television
seasons worth of experience in cracking people up just by glaring into the camera,
so this should be second nature to him. I also have to give them kudos for casting
an actual deaf actress in the role of their daughter. Anyone who’s seen
Wonderstruck probably knew what a great actress Simmonds is, but here her
deafness plays a key part in the story, as she blames herself for her brother’s
death, and her hearing aid plays a central role in discovering the monster’s
weakness.
Speaking of which, if I had any complaint about this movie,
it’s that I was underwhelmed by the design of the monster. Much of the suspense
is due to its absence and they show just enough of it to keep you guessing for
the most part, with it only showing up either in a grainy photo or as a blurry
dash, but once we see it in its entirety, it just looks like an amalgamation of
several movie monsters from the past fifteen years. Have you seen the aliens
from Signs? Have you seen the Cloverfield monster? Have you seen the Demogorgon
from Stranger Things? Have you seen
the Clickers from The Last of Us?
Then you can probably imagine what it looks like just from that. Maybe I just
yearn for the days when movie monsters all looked distinct from each other and
weren’t so concerned with looking biologically accurate, but it is cool that
they essentially make its head 80% ear and teeth.
Bottom line, A Quiet Place is a lean, economical thrill ride
that’s deceptive in its simplicity. It’s the best kind of genre film: one that
takes a strange but simple premise and stretches it to its most logical
extreme. And in some ways, it’s quietly revolutionary. When each mainstream
movie strives to be bigger and louder than the last, this one does much while
saying very little, and uses that silence as its greatest asset.
8/10, Full Price
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