DVD Release/Available to stream
*****
In the not-so-distant future, civilisation has fallen. Destroyed by monstrous creatures who hunt using sound, the world has fallen silent. In this bleak and noiseless setting, two parents aim to protect and raise their growing family...
You know him as Jim in the US version of The Office. You might even know him as the latest cuddly-to-chiseled actor to transfer from funny man to Hollywood hunk, but did you know that John Krasinski is also a director? And for just a third foray behind the camera, A Quiet Place is an extremely assured piece of film making.
Today, with how much we invest in speakers and headphones, it seems like a strange premise to base a film almost entirely around silence. And yet, when sound is taken away, it becomes all the more unnerving. When was the last time we truly heard nothing? Aside from the odd rattle of pills in a jar and the muffled sound of bare feet on the ground, the opening ten minutes or so of the film are completely quiet - and it's wholly immersive. When the sound does come, it's all the more powerful, all the more shocking, proving that when it comes to the horror/thriller genre, you don't need to be elaborate - you simply need to be clever with a very simple element. In the end, it's sound we come to fear, not the lack of it.
Whether A Quiet Place is a horror film or not is up for debate, but the horrible sense of dread and tension that arises from watching it cannot be denied. Several times, swept up in my intent focus on the sign language and mannerisms of our central family, I found myself jumping at the merest hint of sound. Yet, the film isn't scary because the creatures are particularly terrifying or because the premise of being hunted in a post-apocalyptic world is truly awful - it's scary because we fear the breakdown of the central family. Although we barely know them (if I were to have one criticism of the film, it's that it actually isn't long enough - I wanted more about them as a family as opposed to fighting off the creatures), we root for these wholly human, wholly believable characters from the very first instance. Maybe it's because real life husband and wife (John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) play the father and mother on screen that there's so much feeling here, or that each look and gesture has to be loaded with the emotions that the characters cannot express verbally, but we so quickly become swept up in the love and anguish surrounding this familial unit that we are immersed in an empathetic experience. It's truly emotional. That's not to say, however, that there aren't moments of pure jump-out-of-your-skin terror. Fear not, thrill seekers - Krasinski knows what his audience has come for.
A taut, tense little film that packs as much an emotional punch as a it does scary thrills, A Quiet Place is one of the most original movies to grace screens recently. Masterfully directed and performed by a superb cast, the deafening lack of sound adds a wholly new element to the watching experience. Take a cushion to hide behind in the jumpy bits, and to sob into when the familial bonds are tested.
Comments
Post a Comment