Movie Review: A Quiet Place

Disclaimer: This review will contain spoilers. Don't read it unless you've already watched the movie or unless you don't care about being spoiled. I like to analyze movies, and I can't really do that unless I spoil the movie. You have been warned.

An asteroid has crashed to earth, bringing with it blind alien creatures who hunt by sound. The slightest sound you make can attract one of them, unless there is a louder sound nearby. This film follows the Abbott family (whose names, I believe, were never stated in the film but were indicated in the credits) as they struggle to survive in this new world, having to live as quietly as possible so as not to attract these monsters. Most of the people in town have been killed by the creatures, but the Abbotts have had an advantage in that since Regan, the daughter, is deaf, they know how to communicate without talking through sign language.

The trailer didn't reveal what the monsters looked like, but you did get a few glimpses in the movie. The first thing I thought was that they looked a lot like the Cloverfield monster (when I told the friend who attended the movie with me, he concurred that that was his thought, too).

The movie is quite good. It's a horror film, but not in the same vein as many horror movies are today. There were only four or five jump scares (relying on jump scares is lazy writing, so I'm glad there were so few). I'm not a person who can do horror films, but this is more a suspense thriller, which is a genre of horror I can handle.

As good as the movie is, it is not a perfect film. There were situations that were definitely contrived to add danger to the movie. Two that I can recall (and they might be the only two examples):

First, there is a nail on the staircase where Evelyn walks up and down. In one scene in which she is being hunted by a monster, she runs down the staircase, not knowing the nail is there, and she steps down right on it, dropping a glass jar. This, of course, would be incredibly painful, but she can't make any noise or she'll let the creature know where she is. The reason this scene is contrived is because prior in the movie she was pulling a bag made of what looked like cashmere up the staircase. It got caught on the nail, and she kept yanking on it to try and free it, eventually ripping the bag. Nothing comes of this scene (no monster attack, and she doesn't notice the nail); it is purely to let us know the nail is there and set up the later scene where she steps on the nail. Now, there was no rush in this scene. She wasn't being hunted, she was just casually pulling it up. Once the bag was caught, she should have stopped yanking (since she had to avoid making noise), walk down the staircase and see what the bag was caught on. This, of course, would have shown her the nail and she could have done something about it.

Second, there is a scene in which the kids are being hunted and they fall into a grain silo. They start to sink under the grain, nearly suffocating, until they are able to climb onto a metal door to prevent them from sinking. This is all well and good, except that the monster finds them and jumps inside, flipping the metal door over and trapping them underneath. The kids should have sank down into the grain, but they didn't.

Themes

This is a movie about family, and the great lengths a family will go to to watch out for each other and protect each other, including sacrificing themselves to save a loved one. This is a theme that is not properly expressed in fiction today, especially when it comes to a nuclear family (a mom and dad having kids naturally) and in treating the father as heroic rather than a buffoon. Lee doesn't just protect his kids, he helps them survive, including showing why they should go on, trying to live a relatively normal life even in this new, dangerous world.

This also includes forgiveness. Regan, who is played by a real-life deaf actress, blames herself for the death of her youngest brother, Beau, and thinks that her father blames her, too. She goes throughout the movie thinking that her dad hates her for it, and in a moment when Lee has to sacrifice himself for his children, he signs to her that he loves her and has always loved her, showing her that he has never blamed her for Beau's death.

Bishop Barron, and several of my friends, have pointing out the pro-life themes in this movie (Bishop Barron goes further and finds numerous religious themes in the film, including with their name "Abbott" and the way this new world forces them live essentially monastically). I'm always hesitant to call a movie "pro-life" when I don't know the political leanings of the writers or producers, especially since pro-choice people can find reasons why the pro-life themes really aren't pro-life. But in this movie, Evelyn becomes pregnant. One might wonder why anyone would become pregnant in this new dangerous world, but the Abbotts are not letting this world change their determination to live life to the fullest. Rather than leaving the baby to die somewhere because raising a baby is too dangerous, they take steps to find a way to limit the amount of sound that the monsters could potentially hear.

Grade: A

Reason for grade: As I said, this is a very good movie. It's sucks you in right from the beginning and doesn't really let up the suspense, except for brief moments of time (in a reversal, the music is used in this horror film to indicate when we're safe, and the music goes away to indicate when danger is near). It also has excellent pro-family (and possibly pro-life) themes. The only thing really keeping me from giving the film an A+ is the contrived scenes I mentioned at the beginning. If Evelyn had slowed down and found what the bag was caught on, she could have done something about the nail. And the kids should have suffocated when the door was overturned on top of the in the grain silo. Since these examples would have affected the survivability of the scenarios, they affected the grade I gave the film.

A Quiet Place
Directed by: John Krasinski
Written by: Bryan Woods and Scott Beck
Starring:
John Krasinski as Lee Abbott
Emily Blunt as Evelyn Abbott
Millicent Simmonds as Regan Abbott
Noah Jupe as Marcus Abbott
Cade Woodward as Beau Abbott