The Quietest Theater that I've Ever Been In

Movie Reviewed: A Quiet Place

Director: John Krasinski

Date: 25 May 2018

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2



A Quiet Place immerses the audience in a near-liquid silence, an enveloping and pervasive rapture that resists the crinkling of candy bags or the shuffling of ice cubes in a soda cup.  John Krasinski has done something special here, giving us a terrifying monster movie wedded to a silent film's meticulousness, a dance of movement, body and facial control, and sound architecture.  It is brilliant and deserving of great praise.

Noise draws them, apparently, as a crackerjack suspenseful opening scene reveals a couple and their young children scavenging in a pharmacy and then walking an ominous path through the woods.  Title cards reveal the number of days that have passed, though we never fully see the inciting incident.  Krasinki's insular focus on Evelynn and Lee Abbott (Emily Blunt and Krasinski) and their family and its workings means that we never fully see the big picture, though far away lights in the distance from their farmhouse and silo indicate that there might be some hope for humanity.  Pathways are illuminated by sand trails, and all means of noise have been removed, though there is always room for human error. Regan Abbott (Millicent Simmonds) clashes with her father, and her brother Marcus (Noah Jupe) tries to keep the family together despite the terrifying ramifications of any small noise. 

It is an exercise in form to structure a 2018 film as nearly silent, with so much sign language and close-ups of eyes and faces. Krasinski, as a director, does something astonishing here by ratcheting up the tension and holding it, holding it, holding it, with the Spielbergian mantra of hide-the-monster paying off quite well.  There's a sequence with a nail that made my skin crawl and took me back to an incident on Myrtle Ave in the 80's.  There's some really dark moments where it appears that all is lost, as well as escalating awfulness with Lee hidden in the basement.  The last shot of the film is really perfect, and though I am not sure A Quiet Place is an allegory for anything in our modern world, it is surefire entertainment and very controlled and deliberate in its suspense.  My students are proud that Jim from The Office made a film, but more importantly, he has made a great film.