A Quiet Place

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A Quiet Place follows a family trying to survive day to day after an apparent alien invasion. John Kraskinski (who wrote, directed, and starred in the film) cited Alien, Jaws, and No Country for Old Men as influences. This is something that clearly shows in the final product, and I mean that in the best way possible. Kransinksi clearly understands tension, as he manages draw dread out of noises that we normally take for granted. For example, the family lays down paths of sand in order to easily walk barefoot. I wouldn't normally think about how loud a footstep might be. Without going into spoilers, the opening scene is the clearest example I can think of for this. Another element to this movie that works with building tension is the moment you see that Evelyn (played by Emily Blunt) is pregnant. The alien creatures hunt, attack, and kill based off of what they can hear, and babies are naturally loud. They don't have the world experience to know that they need to be quiet in given situations. Much of the film is silent, spoken only in sign language with subtitles at the bottom. There's actually a couple of levels to this. The first level is that the family's eldest child (played by Millicent Simmonds) is deaf. The second level (as I've already talked about) is the creatures hunting and killing people based off of noise. Krasinski sought Simmonds out to play the daughter because she legitimately is deaf, and he felt that would add authenticity to the movie. The moments where characters actually speak are legitimately jarring, and I mean that as a compliment. This is easily one of my favorite movies so far, and I highly recommend it. That said, I do have a couple of warnings. First, because the movie is so quiet, it really does force you to pay attention to it. Second, the movie is slow-paced, and that will be a turn-off for some people. Having read this review and knowing where I stand personally, by now you'll know whether or not this movie is for you.

10 / 10