************************This review contains spoilers****************************
In the year 2020, the world has been besieged by a horde of blind, indestructible creatures with extremely sensitive senses of sound that hunt and kill anything that makes noise. A Quiet Place follows the Abbotts, a family of five consisting of father Lee (John Krasinski), mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt), sons Marcus and Beau (Noah Jupe and Cade Woodward), and daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) as they struggle to survive and live on in a world where one false step can lead to death.
A Quiet Place is one of the most effective films in recent memory at building an incredible amount of tension and a sense of dread into its audience. The use of silence and the importance placed upon maintaining it as a matter of life and death created a scenario where the movement of every character, no matter how slight, was met with worry and trepidation of what they may be inviting as a consequence. The characters in the film seemingly remain at the precipice of disaster through its entirety, tiptoeing along the razor’s edge and as a result, bringing us along with them. The result is a film that moves at a perfect pace with a stranglehold on the audience, keeping them well engrossed and completely invested in the characters and their fates at all times. Toward the end of the film, I actually thought to myself that I was unsure of how much more of the worry and concern for the characters’ survival against their relentless tormentors I could take. Despite this sort of psychological torment, this wasn’t a wish for things to end, just an acknowledgement of the masterful job John Krasinski does in the director’s chair in formulating a story that was able to so transfix even the most hardened moviegoer.
Sound being the source of tension and its resulting importance in A Quiet Place’s story resulted in an extremely interesting dichotomy surrounding it. In the film, Regan is hearing impaired and utilizes a cochlear implant, now homemade by her father following society’s collapse. Regan has become frustrated at her father’s handmade creations and their inability to work well enough to grant her the ability to hear. This occurs amidst the backdrop of the family being extremely diligent in how they speak to one another (through sign language), how they collect their food (fishing in the river so its natural, consistent flow masks the sounds of them killing the fish they’ve caught), and how the move about in their own home. Sound is also used in the film’s finale as the monsters’ one weakness, allowing them to finally be killed. The juxtaposition of all these usages of sound was a fascinating one. Sound represented at once a bane on their existence in terms of the monsters’ attraction to it, and salvation, both personally for Regan and her disability and for humanity in general during the film’s conclusion. This portrayal of the idea that something that causes great harm can also be a tool for good depending on how it’s used was a great bit of writing from the team behind the film.
While its horror story is very much at the forefront, A Quiet Place is also very much a story about the purity and sacrifice that encompasses a parent’s love. Lee and Evelyn have crafted a very methodical, regimented life and living environment for their children that serve both as a enhanced means of survival, and an attempt at living as normal a life as could be had under the circumstances. The amount of effort the couple puts into teaching their children how to best navigate this new, treacherous world comes from Lee and Evelyn’s belief that their own worth as parents is directly tied to their ability to protect their children; a sentiment acted out brilliantly during a conversation in the film between real life couple Blunt and Krasinski. As the plot played out and it is revealed that Evelyn has become pregnant, I struggled with how to view the couple’s decision to bring new life into this dystopian nightmare. Considering the needs and involuntary (read: loud) behavior of infants, wasn’t it a little selfish to bring a child into this environment, even if you build a soundproof room for it as the Abbotts did? While the decision does raise questions, Lee and Evelyn’s choice to conceive also has its origins in love as the decision has its roots in their grief over the tragic loss of Beau to a monster attack and wish to atone for it. By the end of the film, the entire spectrum of just how far-reaching a parent’s love is becomes clear when Lee makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives his life so that his children may have a chance to keep their own. His decision comes at a time when Regan is questioning his love for her after her role in Beau’s death. The sacrifice and his display of his love for his daughter is the exclamation point on the exploration of this theme.
A Quiet Place plays a lot like a silent film throughout much of it (save for sounds emanating from the surroundings), with the actors having to rely on facial expressions, breathing patterns, and terse movement to convey their thoughts and emotions, as well as the use of sign language. Doing these things convincingly could be an arduous task for any thespian but the actors in the film respond superbly. Emily Blunt in particular does a fantastic job of portraying all of the fear and emotion of the film’s tense environment without saying one word, using only her body movement and facial acting. The casting of real life deaf actress Millicent Simmonds is also notable in an industry looking to increase opportunities for marginalized demographics. It would have been easy to cast a bigger name young actress and just have her learn sign language and act out being deaf but elevating a lesser known actress with the actual disability instead of an able-bodied person was a nice move toward authenticity which Simmonds rewarded a great performance.
Since the film does unfold without much speaking, the sound design utilized in A Quiet Place took on increased importance and what was presented on could not have been executed better. The sounds of characters’ feet as they walked down dirt roads, moved inside of cornfields, or walked down creaky steps, really helped to highlight the utter silence surrounding them that they had to adhere to in order to survive in this world. The film also switches between the sound of silence as heard by those with intact hearing, and sound as heard from the perspective of the hearing impaired Regan, a very nice detail that helps to make the world in which she operates feel just as real as that of all the other characters. Sound design is not something that an untrained, non-cinephile viewer would normally recognize in a film but the work here really stands out as its a cut above. Even though it’s extremely early, if this film’s sound design is forgotten by the winter and doesn’t result in a nomination from the Academy, it would be a true travesty. The design of the monsters in the film also stands out as the CGI on the figures themselves is flawless and the design of the sightless beasts is terrifying, eye-catching, and practical all at once. They have no eyes and grotesque heads that open at multiple angles to both disseminate blood-curdling screams and display intricate, giant ear canals that power their enhanced sense of hearing.
A Quiet Place is a one of the most tension filled films to appear onscreen in quite some time. In an era where bombast and explosions seem mandatory for any successful mainstream film, it’s refreshing to be presented with a piece where its power arises from silence and a sense of dread that’s more seen and felt through visual storytelling, rather than straightforward dialogue. The film excels in executing its story and establishing all of its characters as people the audience should care for and be invested in their survival. There is hardly a moment when you won’t be on the edge of your seat, dreading what may be coming, the sign of a great horror film. The sound design is also some of the best work in recent memory and will certainly compete for awards throughout the season later on this year. Even if you don’t like horror films, A Quiet Place is definitely worth your time.
Image: Paramount Pictures
