A Quiet Place
(2018)
(SPOILERS) Movies built on a bedrock of rules usually come a
cropper if they pause long enough to allow examination of how closely they
adhere to them. Either they have to come out and say it doesn’t really matter (Gremlins 2: The New Batch) or the assembled
elements overcome any logical shortcomings. A
Quiet Place, John Krasinski’s third feature as director, rewriting a screenplay
by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, achieves the latter chiefly through devotion to
its characters, but also via a confident grasp of cinematic language.
Actors usually make good directors of actors, even if their visual
imagination is often otherwise on the rudimentary side (competent, but lacking
flourish). Krasinski doesn’t put a foot wrong with his small cast, including
wife Emily Blunt as his character Lee Abbott’s wife Evelyn and a couple of incredibly
strong child actor performances from Millicent Simmonds (deaf daughter Regan)
and Noah Jupe (terrified son Marcus). But he’s equally sure of himself staging
the scares and building the atmospherics. Nothing much happens in the first third
of this compact ninety-minute movie – aside from the loss of third child, Cade
Woodward’s Beau, whose obsession with a space shuttle proves a disaster – but
that attention to establishing the mood, tone and family dynamic pays dividends
when the terror begins.
I’m sure that’s the key to why A Quiet Place has garnered such good press and had such a strong
opening weekend (which will doubtless grant it staying power as summer
blockbuster fare masses on the horizon). As with recent break-out horror hits It and Get Out, its characters and themes (more characters, to be truthful)
ensure it reaches a broader audience than the mere genre faithful. It also
means its weaknesses are more forgivable and easier to ignore. In essence,
Krasinski relies on the horror formula of requiring characters to do stupid
things as a means to ratchet up the tension, but he isn’t doing this merely so
they can end up with an axe in their back, or a sub-Pitch Black, sub-Cloverfield
(apparently, Paramount execs considered the screenplay as a potential part of
that series at one point in the development process) CGI-alien chewing on their
faces. The monster’s probably the movie’s biggest weakness, actually, in that it’s
a bunch of nothing original design-wise, but even then, Krasinski almost
entirely overcomes the deficiency through treating its presence with utter
conviction and materiality.
Of course, the movie’s strengths don’t mean its structural
weaknesses don’t warrant some scrutiny. In terms of escalation, Krasinski does
occasionally elicit a groan through the manner he cranks up, or piles on, the dread
developments (the near-breaking point for me was the leaky bath, on top of
waters breaking and nails through feet and intrusive, pesky aliens making
kind-of-Predator noises as they rock up at importune moments). And exposition
is preferably judicious rather than clunky; are we expected to believe Lee
would have left it as long as he has (400-odd days and counting) to let Marcus
know loud noises such as the river can drown out lesser ones such as human
activity? The answer is, of course, of course he wouldn’t, particularly since
Marcus is clearly also already aware of the potential of diversionary sound
effects.
But this leads in turn to other posers. Such as, as the
newspaper cuttings evidence, how everyone knows these blind beggars prey on
their prey through sensitivity to sound. Thus, it’s only logical that sound might
also be used as a means to retaliate against them. It isn’t just that it takes
so long for the Abbotts to realise this (thanks to Regan’s acting-up hearing
aid; dad may not have managed to fix it, but he’s provided something even
better. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere); wouldn’t it be the
first thing the off-screen authorities and their teams of scientists thought of
(apparently not, as the US military is defeated, or hiding out in their underground
cities, at any rate)?
There’s also that you’d have thought the Abbots would arm
themselves with monster distractors all over their property, not just the
couple we hear, and that they’d put anything that might suddenly fall over
(like a wall’s length of framed pictures) far out of toppling’s way. And copious
quantities of cotton wool. And while they’re at it, why are they just visiting
a waterfall to have a conversation? Wouldn’t it be better to live by one? Or
something else consistently noisy?
I appreciate it would be difficult to anticipate all potentially
undermining factors in a concept like this, though, and Krasinski does a bang-up
job maintaining the sustained silence (so much so, the entire audience was
respectfully quiet throughout the screening I attended), the signage the entire
family knows proving highly fortuitous (I did expect them to be a lot less used
to speaking when they did have
conversations, though, as that ought to set in after only a few days).
The family dynamic is explored effectively through the
horror prism, particularly the relationship between Regan and Lee, the former
convinced dad hates her for the death of Beau (she gave him the toy space
shuttle), even to the extent that, as dumb as it is, you can see how she’d run away,
and the emotional pay off that the last thing her father does is not just tell
her but show her how much he loves her.
The position of Lee in this might be the most interesting
element. At one point, Evelyn makes him promise to uphold the traditional patriarchal
model (“You protect them!”), but he’s
in a situation where, at best, he can only fail less badly than others might.
He has, after all, initiated the worst possible scenario for the family by
impregnating Evelyn with a little miracle that will, sooner or later, be the
death of them all. And, as mentioned, its only through error that he provides a
means to best the beasts. I’m less convinced by Krasinski’s extoling the
picture as a metaphor for US politics than parenthood, however (“You can close your eyes and stick your head
in the sand, or you can try to participate in whatever’s going on”) as that
reads a lot like grasping at straws of gravitas for what is a fairly standard genre
template.
I also appreciated the gung ho, going-all-Ash cliffhanger
ending, even if I rather question Evelyn’s bring-it-on spirit when the main
thing on her mind would surely be getting her baby to safety (Blunt is giddily
good throughout, but we’ve come to expect that by now). Is there any legitimate
reason to return to the well here, as writers Woods and Beck have threatened?
Since Paramount has made a mint on a cheap picture, obviously. But aside from
that, what made this special was the human factor. If whoever makes the sequel
can’t replicate that (and I doubt it will be Krasinski), An Even Quieter Place will just be another horror flick.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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