Flimsy Script Overshadows Capable Direction In "A Quiet Place"
Warning: moderate “A Quiet Place” spoilers below.
More on the white board in a moment.
The character is Lee Abbott, a devoted family man facing down a world rampaged by bloodthirsty beasts with hypersensitive hearing. Make a noise above thirty decibels or so and you’re dead meat. Krasinski, who co-wrote and directed the film, stars as Lee, lending the character the same genial steadfastness he brought to the role of Jim on NBC’s “The Office.” There it was vital to the perilous equilibrium of paper company Dunder Mifflin. Here it’s a matter of life and death.
Lee is an archetype of patriarchal authority, his life devoted to preventing his wife Evelyn (Krasinski’s real-life spouse Emily Blunt) and their children from meeting grisly ends. As the family anticipates the arrival of a new baby, our bearded, stoic protagonist goes to every length imaginable to secure their rural compound. Never mind the unfathomability of bringing new life into this reality; the film doesn’t address it.
The Abbott’s eldest child Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is deaf; the family mostly communicates in American Sign Language. This is a double-edged sword when it comes to dealing with the aforementioned monsters; it also informs much of the pic’s sparse sound design. The occasional shot from Regan’s point of view is utterly silent, silences that scream out louder than any jump scare sound effect might. This is a boon to the scenes where the creatures lurk in either foreground or background. They are uniformly rattling- and uniformly Spielbergian.
Krasinski crafts some sequences of indelible suspense – the best of which features a very pregnant Evelyn cowering in a bathtub – none of which really belong to him. His film ends up even more indebted to Spielberg than J.J. Abrams’ famously imitative “Super 8,” essentially stretching the iconic “Jurassic Park” Velociraptors in the kitchen scene to feature length. There’s even a sequence in a silo that evokes the equally recognizable T-Rex vs. Ford Explorer attack – engaging in the moment, utterly pedestrian in comparison to the classic it apes.
Derivations aside, Lee and his family are the pic’s biggest liabilities. They’re 20 lb. stock cut out characters, their dearth of dialogue preventing us from getting to know them in the slightest. The screenplay’s attempt to make them every family makes them no family at all, rejecting the tried and true narrative notion that relatability comes through specificity. The rejection proves fatal. Our only investment in Lee and his family is in the innate likability of Krasinski and Blunt and in how cruelly the film puts small children in mortal danger time and again. It might as well be called “Children In Peril: The Movie.”
To his credit, Krasinski has made a fairly handsome movie – an occasionally startling, borderline arty mainstream horror film. But it’s so bereft of both charisma and substance, so committed to a dubious idealization of survivalism that the “instant classic” hoopla surrounding its release might be a marker on its grave. Its final ten minutes look like the shower of dirt on top.
“WHAT IS WEAKNESS” Lee’s white board asks in regards to the vicious creatures with super hearing. Sound, it turns out. Who would’ve thought?
-J. Olson
Rating: ★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★★ (Mediocre)
Release Date: April 6, 2018
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: John Krasinski
Screenwriters: John Krasinski, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for terror and some bloody images)
Kudos to you for the only review that captured this piece of crap. Can’t believe I wasted 2 hours with this. 95% on RT??
Mystery to me why this movie got 95%, found it pretty underwhelming
Agreed. I was tracking with the movie until, as you mentioned, the inanities began to reoccur. The little boy and the airplane– smh. The bloody hand to the glass– that’s when I thought, “Okay. lol. This is a little ridiculous.”
Good review.
This movie was excellent, dont know what you guys were watching. Delusional and cynical af, enjoy this suspenseful, gut-wrenching piece of art for what it is. The greatest of movies have minor idiosyncrasies that detract from the immersion, unless you’re not a tryhard punk.
You couldn’t be more wrong. I tried to like this movie. Even with its stupid premise and even with each plot hole being more ridiculous than the last, I kept watching because I thought that maybe it would turn around by the end. But it didn’t. This movie was not only bad, it was RAZZIE bad. A schizophrenic couldn’t suspend disbelief because nothing made sense.
Don’t insult people who hated this movie just because you can’t see the stupidness of the film.
Really, that’s what you think? I haven’t seen audience response like this in years. The thing was creative, terrifying, intelligent… the characters well developed and real (they actually are related in real life, really deaf as well). Not only was the entire story completely involving, the last 15 seconds was one of the most succinct and satisfying endings in years, an iconic classic. You are thinking too hard. Your other reviews suffer from the same depressive viewpoint. Don’t quit your day job, you don’t get this at all.
No, he got it. You just have low standards if you thought this movie was “intelligent.” It was riddled with plot holes and made no sense at all.
Did not care for this movie. Alot of the setup was sort of obvious. A huge nail sticks up through the bottom of the step? I mean, what kind of person leaves this nail there? Also I didn’t like the rules for the creatures. This part did not seem thought out very well. No vision but incredible fast running through the forest. Amazing hearing over distance but can’t hear breathing in the same room.
Just saw it a couple nights ago. Even with expectations I wasn’t at all disappointed. If I wanted to pick the plot apart, I could. But I realized while the credits were rolling that inconsistencies came to mind after the ending, so as far as I’m concerned Krasinski satisfied all of the requirements that a competent filmmaker should–total absorption for 95 minutes of screen time. The kid’s toy in the beginning? Yes, kids do stupid things, especially when introduced to a brand new life overnight, so that didn’t seem at all out of place. In fact, the setup gave us a sickening glimpse into the inevitable, the same technique Hitchcock often employed. I will say Krasinski’s sacrifice wasn’t necessary, as up to this point they’d gotten by fairly well by deflecting sound away from him, all he needed to do was throw the ax into the cornfield to implement a new sound. But whateves, it didn’t take away from the creep factor, so I find it was mission accomplished.
I felt the dangerous creatures with the acute hearing looked an awful lot like the creatures in “Alien”. It would have been good If they looked a little more original . However, that being said . the whole concept of having to keep quiet as possible (from a film making perspective) is quite a challenge and I give them a great deal of credit for that. It creates a tension all its own. What’s dumb to one, is brilliant to another, so I see no need to insult. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It was fun.
I disagree with some of Olson’s comments, but the fatal flow of the film I think is that I can’t believe humanity could be so stupid. If they creatures are irresistibly drawn to sound, why not draw them in with alarms and Nuke’ em? Could a whole civilization really be wiped out before somebody thought to use sound as a weapon? Nah, I don’t think so. It’s a premise/script problem…otherwise it was beautifully acted and directed.
First… really enjoyed the film. Confession… I discount plot holes the instant they appear, otherwise I stop enjoying a film and fell like I’m wasting my time… who wants to do that? But second… they all pile back into my head as soon as the credits roll. I’m okay with the “late” discovery of sound as a weapon… the Dad had been messing around with different frequencies for months before accidentally striking gold. But what did we learn at the end? Apparently, guns CAN kill these things. As long as you aim at the head. If only the armies of the world had guns, and people who could aim. The words “sniper” and “silencer” feel like they go together. I like “flamethrower”, too. And “remote controlled machine gun” – you know, the mounted kind on a swivel, with a long string tied to the trigger. Hold on… “tank”. “Acid”. “Tar pit”. Okay, I’ll stop now.
Somehow it seems to me the people who are defending this movie haven’t seen anything truly amazing. Thank you for the honest review!
It’s good to see at least one reviewer actually watched this movie rather than rubber stamped it because they thought they had to. This movie was not good, was absolutely NOT intelligent and was not scary.
For anyone that thinks this movie was smart, please answer these questions:
1. They go to a waterfall where they can scream as loud as they want and the monsters can’t hear them. Why not live there? They could fish and collect drinking water near the river. The monsters would probably stay away from the area since the sound of the falls would impede their hunting ability.
2. When taking a walk, does anyone seriously let the youngest child of the group walk behind them. Why on earth would they let a young boy walk a hundred yards behind the adults in such a dangerous situation. They can’t even correct the boy if he makes any mistakes, and indeed this results in his death.
3. How on earth did they get the corn planted? By hand? After 400+ days you wouldn’t see corn in nice little neat rows like it was planted by farm equipment.
4. Since the monsters can’t hear you if there is a loud sound nearby, why not bring out one of the downstairs speakers and blast something 24/7 on one of the nearby trees or on top of the house? The monsters would get used to the sound and leave the area alone, leaving the family to talk in peace.
5. What human with a brain wouldn’t consider making a soundproof room. They could go to the city, get a bunch of foam, blankets, pillows, whatever, and plaster it around one of the larger rooms until they created an effective sound barrier. In the movie, a single mattress pulled over a walkway is an effective sound shield. Imagine how effective they could be if they put some ACTUAL effort into soundproofing the room.
6. Apparently the monsters can be killed by shotguns? The entire military was wiped out, with all the weaponry of the finest military in the world rendered useless against the monsters, but Emily Blunt shoots one in the head and kills it? Right.
7. The mother, Emily Blunt, is pregnant. Why would you bring a newborn child into this world, when the child will surely jeopardize the safety of the entire family. You know that babies cry right? Pull out or use a condom.
8. If the monsters can hear the faintest sound from far way, why do they have trouble hearing sounds that even humans can decipher at close range. A baby crying, a mother’s heavy breathing, a persons heartbeat. All of these things would be loud to a creature that hear can hear footstep from a half mile away.
9. The mother’s water breaks and she starts having the baby. She tries to contain her gasps and walks downstairs only to step on a nail on the stairway. She lets out a sound and falls, causing the monsters to hunt her down and nearly kill her and the newborn child. However, just in time, she is saved by fireworks designed to distract the monsters. Instead of removing the nail like any sane person, they just ignore it and leave it sticking up on the stairs for someone else to step on. Dumb.
I am not saying you cannot enjoy the movie, but do not call this travesty “smart” when teenagers going to Crystal Lake are much smarter than it.