Movie Review: A Quiet Place

Certificate 15, 90 minutes

Director: John Krasinski

Stars: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds

A Quiet Place opens on Day 89 in an abandoned-looking town. There are no people on the streets and the shops are empty. A board has posters of a number of missing people on it.

Gathering Supplies

Inside one shop there is a family; a daughter, two sons, mother and father. The daughter is deaf and has a cochlear implant, but the family are using sign language to talk to each other even when the deaf daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), isn’t present, and all are barefoot (later, there is a demonstration of why shoes are usually worn). The mother, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is carefully looking through bottles of pills, moving them very slowly, before finally finding some that she gives to the older of the two boys, Marcus (Noah Jupe).

The younger boy, Beau (Cade Woodward), has drawn a picture of a rocket on the shop floor and signs to his sister that that’s how they will get out of there. He then tries to get a shuttle toy off a shelf and nearly drops it on the floor, but Regan catches it just in time. The father, Lee (John Krasinski), has got some parts that are apparently for a radio.

Keep Quiet

Beau approaches the rest with something that causes them to look at him in horror. It’s the shuttle toy, and Lee carefully takes it from Beau and removes the batteries from it, signing that it is too loud. As they leave, Regan gives Beau the toy; unseen by anyone, Beau also takes the batteries. Outside the shop there is a brief glance of a newspaper headline with just two words – “It’s Sound.”

As they are making their way back, Beau puts the batteries into the shuttle, causing it to make noise. Once again, everyone looks at him in horror, and Beau’s father runs back towards his son. Something is seen travelling through the woods at great speed before the largely unseen shape snatches Beau away before his father can reach him.

One Year Later

It’s now Day 472. The family are living on a farm, but not in the main house. They are living in the barn, and there is a subterranean area there. In the cellar of the main house is Lee’s workshop. There are various newspaper clippings about creatures called Dark Angels, how they hunt by sound and how living underground is the key to survival, and Lee has jotted down things such as “Armour,” “Blind” and “Weakness?” CCTV monitors cover one wall, showing the exterior of the farm and Lee is also working on some cochlear implants. He has a radio set up and is trying to contact anyone, crossing entire countries off a list as he fails to reach anyone in them. Evelyn is pregnant and she is making a crib for the baby; a crib that is soundproofed and has an oxygen supply, babies not being known for the silence. Outside, sand covers all the areas where people regularly walk. When night falls, Lee light a beacon fire and a number of others can be seen too.

There are only a few Dark Angels that have been spotted in the area, but they are fast, well armoured, have exceptional hearing and are not fully seen until close to the end, only teeth and sharp claws really being seen. The rest of the film takes place over the course of a couple of days, showing the tension within the family – Regan blames herself for Beau’s death and believes that her father does too – and the difficulty of managing on a day to day basis without sound – although the family does have power to spare. With the Dark Angels being blind, the outside has many lights at night, covering the pathways. When the enemy hunts by sound, it’s more important to ensure that no sounds are made, such as by tripping in the dark, than to keep things unlit.

A Quiet Place in Review

This is a very quiet film – and not one that can be looked away from without risking losing elements of what’s going on. The dialogue is almost completely in sign language with subtitles; there are a couple of times when the cast whisper very quietly whilst signing to each other and at one point there is actual talking, as other louder sounds nearby make it safe to talk. There is the occasional bit of music, but the overall impression given is one of silence – with a brutal example given at the beginning as to what happens when the silence is broken. A lack of speech and sound to define the film means that it has to be defined by the interactions, often non-verbal, between the cast – probably something that’s harder to do than simply speaking. By these interactions, the family is conveyed, and it is a family.

The cast is very limited too. Only the family is really seen on screen; extremely briefly there is another couple. The family’s life is not perfect, and the loss of the youngest son has definitely caused problems, but they are still having another baby, despite the situation they are in. Which is definitely not ideal for having a child.

Only glimpsing the Dark Angels for much of the film adds to their impact; they are simply shapes that are either briefly glimpsed or seen in poor lighting conditions. Not knowing what the Dark Angels are or where they come from also makes them more fearsome. What can be explained can be understood, and understanding something often makes it harder to fear. These could be anything, such as aliens or biological experiments that have got loose. Nothing is suggested.

A Quiet Place is an excellent horror film with a monster foe that has impact and a story that is underlined by the simple lack of speech.