A Quiet Place
In a post-apocalyptic world, a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing.
Cast
Emily Blunt – Evelyn
John Krasinski – Lee
Noah Jupe – Marcus
Millicent Simmonds – Regan
Silent Movie
Before I went to see this movie someone I know told me it was so silent at certain points that his enjoyment was ruined by other cinema goers:
I went to see it, and the silent parts were fine because there wasn’t much noise coming from people in the cinema. So my first word of advice is to watch this in an extremely quiet environment free from all noise, and you will get the full experience.
A Quiet Place wasn’t the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen, but it certainly did a good job of bringing about a constant feeling of tension. Its story is different – yet slightly similar to other films out there. Weird, huh? But true. It’s something we haven’t seen before, yet carries a slight hint of Signs (2002), War of The Worlds (2005), The Descent (2005), and Don’t Breathe (2016). Many of us have seen a film at some stage where the predatory monster / alien / person is blind – so has to pick off the characters by hearing where they are. And this is just how A Quiet Place plays out, it borrows this one main element from previous productions and sends Blunt and Krasinski out into the wilderness to bring back a simple story fuelled by adrenaline and sinister alien activity. And it works, regardless of it not being an original (but refreshing) concept.
From the opening scene the movie is near-silent which heightens the atmosphere and provides the viewer with a sense of unease. The characters on screen tip-toe around their home town gathering supplies, before returning to their forest dwelling and continuing with daily life – in silence. Communication is by way of sign language and anything physical must be done in complete quiet. This makes the movie quite interesting and a unique way for it to play out. Amongst all the metal-clad superheroes, gun fights, dinosaurs, chick flicks and bondage recently, A Quiet Place is refreshing. So top marks for – amazingly – lack of sound and actors expressing themselves almost entirely physically to get their story across.
The scene involving childbirth is incredibly tense and worth your full concentration during the movie. The performance given by Blunt smashes anything she’s done recently.
A Quiet Place has a really loose feel about it. It’s a unique story but it lacks substance most of the time. A family hiding from alien creatures. And venturing out into once habitable towns to find supplies. That’s all you have here. Nothing else. This is a movie that feels like a quickie, a gem knocked up in a couple of months to fill a gap between bigger releases coming out in cinemas. And it works nicely on that level but that’s it, there isn’t much left to wow audiences other than the fact the movie is (almost) completely silent, and one or two moments of true tension.
I’m half and half on this one.
A Quiet Place certainly is quiet until its ‘deafening’ finale – keep your eyes peeled for this, it’s weird but gripping. Top marks for a fresh idea for film, no marks for being the sort of film that entertains where it should but ultimately fades into the background quickly after you’ve switched it off.. however good it was.
Ricky's Film Reviews 