Review: A Quiet Place

“Not an easy film to quietly eat popcorn in….”

A Quiet Place is a fairly familiar film, wrapped in a few good original ideas. However, at times, the film lets itself down by clearly telegraphing many events.

The plot is told from day 83 (before jumping to day 471) of some sort of event, where monsters have just started attacking and apparently we were unable to fight back. But there’s a catch… they only attack when they hear you. So if you’re really quiet, they won’t.

Now, at times, the rules of this story seem to be rubbery. The laws of sound seem to be a bit fuzzy as well, and we certainly encounter the quietest new born baby in the history of humanity.

There is very little dialogue in the film, as you’d expect, but the film has designed a number of quite clever ideas for our characters to achieve things and to survive. The acting is very good, with Emily Blunt leading the way, with a number of highly tense scenes requiring a strong emotional performance without the use of sound. Blunt’s real life husband John Krasinski plays her movie husband as well, and whilst he shoulders less of the acting burden, he works well opposite Blunt and their kids.

The monster has a number of interesting design elements. The impressive aspects revolve around how the creature hears. However, other than that, the creature feels very borrowed from other movie monsters. In fairness, it’s a tough genre to be original in.

The film doesn’t quite nail the sense of helplessness and despair that it should have, considering the carnage the creatures have reeked upon humanity. The telegraphing of events, such as lingering the camera on a danger that will come in to play in the next few scenes, lets the film down, and the film has to use jump scares and loud creature noises to create scares for the audience. Whilst there is tension there, it wasn’t racked up to 11 like it could have been. The silence in the cinema, especially in the first half, should create more tension than it does. However, the constant sound of people eating pop corn or getting chips out of a rustly bag, combined with the modern audience’s inability to watch a movie without discussing it with the person next to them, does detract from what the director is going for.

The film is receiving high praise, but for me, it was a good solid film, worth seeing, but with not a lot to remember it for. Considering the end of the film, overall, it was kind of like a more action filled version of Signs, but with more re-watchability.

The five bearded questions:

1. Was it worth a cinema trip? Yes

2. Would I See It Again at the Cinema? No

3. Would I buy it on Blu-ray: (only films I really love get bought these days) No 4. Do I Recommend people see it? Yes

5. Any cheese/ Disney style bullshit?: (such as jokes wedged in at serious moments, because fun!). No