Movie Reaction: A Quiet Place

Formula: (The Road + War of the Worlds) - Sound

I'm in quite a predicament right now. You see, there's this horror movie. It's got a killer premise; it's about a family trying to survive at their farmhouse, hiding from creatures who have taken over the planet and hunt only by sound. The screenplay conveys so much information despite being nearly dialogue free. The cast does great work selling the fear and frustration that the story requires. The direction and photography have some tremendous visual story telling. The production team has developed a world that feels lived-in. It's a really well-made movie.

But this film also has a couple big weaknesses that risk undoing all the goodwill the movie has built up. Now I find myself struggling with how to rate it.

It looks like A Quiet Place is going to be this Spring's surprise hit. That makes sense. A successful horror movie needs a good hook. In 2016, Don't Breathe became a quiet hit with a pretty similar conceit. Real life adorable married couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinski starring in this film certainly didn't hurt it either. Horror is having quite a moment with three different kinds of major hits in 2017 (Split, Get Out, It). People are ready to make A Quiet Place a thunderous success.

The film opens not long after mysterious creatures have taken over the Earth. Convenient newspaper shots tell the audience the basics: We don't know what they are or how to beat them. They hunt by sound and can't see at all. They have killed almost everyone on the planet. The movie follows a single family. Blunt and Krasinski are the parents. They have three children. The trailers spoil it already, but I'll just say that tragedy strikes the family early on. Cut to a year later. The family's farmhouse has been entirely transformed into a sound protected compound. They are more comfortable than when we last saw them but no less scared. The mother is late into a pregnancy and the family is finishing preparations for how to deal with a screaming infant. The father is desperately trying to make a hearing aid that will work for his deaf daughter. The daughter blames herself for what happened at the beginning of the film. The son is generally petrified all the time. The story is largely driven by survival, and you can assume what complications drive the inevitable conflict.

The movie about how the family survives, when even the slightest hiccups (literally, now that I think about it) can lead to certain death, is pretty great. The motivations and concerns for every family member are believable and well-conveyed. Krasinski has transformed himself into a rugged manly-man well over the last couple years. Blunt fits in surprisingly well into the setting. The children, played by Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, a very good too. I suppose that with no dialogue, there's not much room for child performers to come off as precocious: a hidden blessing.

I always talk about my One Big Leap. That's the one big contrivance that I allow any movie before I start deducting points, so to speak. Most movies need something to drive the story forward or to bring everything together or else it's just 90 minutes of people sitting quietly in a room. The One Big Leap is a nebulous term. It isn't always obvious to spot it. The problem A Quiet Place runs into is with the "big" part. This movie has a number of contrivances and they will bother some people more than others. For me, I didn't mind as much in the moment, but the longer I reflect on the movie, the more they bother me.

[I'm not about to get into outright spoilers, but you certainly run the risk is figuring things out about the movie a little too early if you continue beyond this]

The biggest leap for me has to do with fighting these creatures. The solution to defeating them is too obvious. It's the equivalent of fighting an ice monster and someone suggesting, "Should we try fire?". I simply cannot believe that these creatures overran the Earth without anyone figuring out the solution before this movie does. The next biggest leap is how the movie forces conflict. Certain obstacles turn into Final Destination-levels of teasing the audience. The film starts stacking the deck against the family in ways that feel excessive and forced. The whole movie is built on the idea of small mistakes having big consequences. There's no reason why the story has to work so hard to create conflicts and obstacles. The last leap, and this is very nit-picky, is that I don't understand how they soundproofed the house. There's sand on the floor to denote where there's no floor-creaking. If floor creaking would've given them away, then wouldn't they die testing the floors out in the first place? There's a few details like that that make me question how this family survived so long.

The movie is thoroughly enjoyable in the moment. Krasinski's direction is very good. I hope he continues directing films even if it means seeing less of him in front of the screen. The story never drags, despite largely silent performances. When bad things happen in the movie, you feel the weight of them. Even though I don't think it fits at all with the rest of the movie, I loved the final shot of the movie. There's so much to like about this movie that I won't begrudge its success. On a simple pass/fail measure, it easily passes. I had a few too many issues to really love it though, especially when a lot of those issues could've been solved by pulling back just 10-15%.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend