A Quiet Place: Day One
A Quiet Place: Day One
There are enough interesting ideas and there’s at least two brave performances to hold “A Quiet Place: Day One” together, even when such strongmen usually feels like a rough cut of some better and more sophisticated’s fiction film.
‘Pig’ director Michael Sarnoski is quite skilled with these kinds of combination of characters and their relationships with people which are frequently missing in these guns and fast cars filled movies. To be too forth, he does not possess the necessary qualifications on action, a key strength for a movie of this nature: the set pieces are too loose and the levels of dramatics do not reach where it should be.
In spite of this, however, what could have been pure cheeseballer unit has and desire to do greater things, so that the picture never gets boring enough just provoking even more big ideas for what is important in the world when it is crumbling.
Lupita Nyong’o, who is as brilliant as always, embodies Sam, a stage IV cancer patient who agrees to go to New York City with her hospice Support group headed by a bearded Alex Wolff who also was part of the cast for ‘Pig’ for a show.
An adult puppetry that they watch is okay, but she’s in a hurry to sample New York pizza, since this is most likely the last instance she would have a chance to eat something that brings her joy. There is something fresh and really horrific about the whole end stage cancer patient bit.
At what point does one stop fighting? There are only some of the more interesting ideas Sarnoski’s film manages to stumble upon, but too soon beats a hasty retreat into the meager edifice of a survival thriller.
Another big question is, how do you silence one of the loudest cities in the world On the point in time in the film, Sarnoski’s mates guide us that NYC is typically 90 decibels, making this some warm up for a film about how a metropolis so seemingly busy operates in silence.
But this isn’t that movie. People don’t leave Manhattan until the end of the world arrives on the first day. Everyone made it out but Sarnoski, since there’s no wryness in a film where Manhattan is not shot despite it’s supposed to be set there (mostly shot in London soundstages). This makes it feel more like sets than a lived in reality.
We care for Sam and her pet, cinema-phantom Frodo, travelling through the scenery until the chased panic strikes down on a boy flaunting Eric (Joseph Quinn of “Stranger Things”). It is said that casting Nyong’o and Quinn is like winning half the war with “A Quiet Place: Day One,” because the faces of both are overly effective in working behind the lens when the sound sensitive aliens take over the earth, although their characters are also active during these times. They are both strong in terms of genre, and mainly through physical and mimetic means, tell a significant part of the plot.
The issue is there is almost no story. In the first half an hour, we are introduced to Henri (played by Djimon Hounsou) who appears to have a role also in ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’; he has one of the best scenes of the movie.
A man in front of him and his son suddenly goes into panic mode and one imagines anticipatory worry for the least possible scenario about to unfold at once. What would you do? How far do you think you would go to ensure none of the men whom you think can threaten your family lives? Will you assassinate him? It’s a beat that gets a nice callback later when Eric gets panicky and we see how Sam may have to question herself the same way but it feels very thin – that’s all.
“Day One” almost offers rush for every thematic strand and this could be the reason why Jeff Nichols who was attached earlier walked away over creative differences. This is hard to imagine in nowadays where there are tons of over-the-top popcorn movies, however, this should have been more of a length, the time was too short at 99 minutes does not give enough time for character development, correct world setups and actual tension.
Still, Sarnoski’s evident ability to nuance comes out in a few of those beats. Sarnoski manages to extract from Nyong’o and Quinn very solid performances that are forgiven the almost non-existent dialogue. His style is good, but he would have hoped to get a co-director who could style ‘Day One’ more than what it has in terms of substance.
In the action where the aliens are just being the aliens, ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ occupies a space just above performing realism but below action like density. Smallish moments in ‘Day One’- kids in a fountain not wanting to be heard, Eric in the video in the flooded subway, a hand over a mouth which is screaming, Quinn and Nyong’o’s beautiful eyes, all of these enhance it above other sequels that are devoid of imagination.
One such film is this, till date. It has too much going for you for you to be that cynical with the film, honestly. Simply however, emits the chastising undertone that very few are likely are going to spring to the evidence.
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- Genre: horror, Sci-fic
- Country: United States
- Director: Michael Sarnoski
- Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff
