A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place is in its second week, still winning domestic box office, and is John Krasinki’s break-out film behind the camera. I was excited for this film because John Krasinski and his wife were the two main actors, playing a married couple. Not only was their chemistry heartwarming, but the performances of the them and the child actors are impressively intense and human in this original and intriguing horror film.

This film had very few characters to support its story, which gave each one more time to have the spotlight for development. In my opinion, the fewer characters a story has, the better its evolution will be, and A Quiet Place proved it flawlessly. Like every other film coming out after the #MeToo movement, the women were the strongest in the end, but unlike other films, these women had faults and problems that gave them a sense of reality and an internal obstacle that helped them gain their strength in front of my eyes. Every character in this film made mistakes, every single one is fighting the world around them and lose constantly; this struggle made me care for them as people, not as celebrities or representative icons, but as people. One of the interesting aspects the writers did was that the son’s story was not finished when the credits rolled. He still has to overcome his faults, there is still a long road ahead of him before he can be like his father, and that shined in comparison to the conventional rise-to-power of the daughter. The parents have their own story, but they mainly serve like all parents do: guardians and mentors for their children. The son’s development started because his father placed him away from the safety of their home, and through this change his father shows him how they can push their rules to survive in the future. The daughter had the strongest storyline due to her connection with her father and the past mistakes that haunt her. The mother did not start her development, but she slightly mirrors her growth consistently through the film, so by the end they are together when they find their strength. These relationships were the plot; the monsters pushed against the characters only to make them grow faster. The plot moved when the characters made decisions, and that is how the consequences and character growth continued hand-in-hand for a simple yet strong story for this film.

I had two challenges with this film: jump scares and a contrasting final scene. The first one was too many pointless jump-scares. For a film about sound, the scares were cheap by adding loud noises to make the audience jump. Every horror film does this, but if they kept the scary scenes silent, especially when the loud noises came from things other than the creatures, it would be twice as effective. Now, the creatures having loud noises I am fine with; they are supposed to make you jump and they are very loud, but when the build up goes to a loud noise and nothing else, it pissed me off. It only happens three or four times, and the rest of the film has immersing sound design that pulls you into each scene.

The second challenge with this film was the last scene. The complete ending was great; all the characters found their ways to survive and overcame their obstacles together, but the last scene accidentally contrasted with what the film was showing. The process each character had to endure through each day simply showed how difficult it was just to live; the limitations of sound ran their entire day, and the consequences of ignoring the rules were fatal. The last scene was the exact opposite. Two characters looked at each other, believing they were bad asses, and prepared to go guns blazing. Why the sudden shift? They survived for one night, and suddenly they felt they could take on the world. The atmosphere changed like a light switch, and it jolted me when the credits blasted on immediately after it. The feel of the film went from tense, organic, thrilling, to an amateur popcorn fiasco in two seconds. Until that point, I loved this film, and I know this is a small moment most people will overlook, but the rest of the theater awkwardly chuckled when it happened. It did not take away from the rest of the story, but I wished they continued with the atmosphere they spent 90 minutes creating.

Overall, this was an impressive story pulled by great performances and well written characters. With the focus of silence, everything was shown visually, as any film should be, and the execution was beautiful. I know I ranted about two tiny problems, but they were nothing compared to the greatness of Krasinski’s directing and the writers he found with this script. This film was almost bought and changed into another Cloverfield film, so thank God the writers had their script approved as a stand alone, as 10 Cloverfield Lane should have been. If you like John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, emotionally charged character moments, strong, drawn out scenes with consequences, or satisfying attention to sound and a family’s life, then go see A Quiet Place. It is a brilliant example of stand alone films that pay attention to detail and grow in the skills of the people in front of and behind the camera.

Story Rating: 8/10

Character Rating: 9/10