Wednesday, February 6, 2019

A Quiet Place (2018. PG-13)


This was a movie that I had some interest in when it came out – I like both Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, it has a Deaf connection, and the central conceit was intriguing – but I just never got around to it.  While its speculative Oscar-nom potential didn’t pan out, I understand why people were throwing its name around in different categories.  This is a neat, atmospheric horror piece that uses its hook to good effect, and I have to imagine that seeing it in a crowded theater made for a pretty singular experience.

We enter the story in media res, some time after society has been devastated by vicious blind monsters that hunt by sound.  An isolated family has learned to live in silence:  covering their farm with sound-muffling padding and other adaptations, communicating in sign language (the oldest child is Deaf,) and using lights and other visual cues as signals.  More than a year into this silent siege, everything with the monsters comes to a head.

Okay, so there are some notable plotholes.  Namely, why are the parents having a baby when making noise will kill them?  I get that they’ve spent a good chunk of the last nine months preparing a soundproof cellar for the baby, but why is this happening in the first place?  1)  This puts the entire family in so much more danger.  2) Why would they want to bring a baby into such a nightmarish world?  3) If it was an accident, were they not using protection, and/or why didn’t they use safer ways of being intimate?  Don’t get me wrong – the wife going into labor and not being able to make a sound makes for an incredibly tense scene, but why is she even in this situation?

Now that that’s out of the way… Logic gaps aside, it really is an effective horror movie.  Like the classic Buffy episode “Hush,” it takes advantage of its premise to tell a really creative story.  The suspense is excellent, the cinematography heightens the mood, and John Krasinski’s direction is both scary and engaging.

The acting is also very good.  Needless to say, Blunt is fantastic.  She and real-life husband Krasinski have beautiful chemistry, and both of them play well off the child actors.  Without a ton of dialogue or information about the characters (we don’t even know their names,) they create a family dynamic that feels specific and genuine.

Also, can I just point out that these people have survived this long in large part because the parents decided to learn the language of their Deaf daughter and then raised their young children bilingual?  They would’ve had no hope of conveying necessary instructions to their youngest if he hadn’t already known sign, it’s so much faster and less cumbersome than trying to write notes all the time (especially in dangerous situations,) and having an easy way to communicate helps keep them from going crazy after more than a year of living in this very intense manner.  Let that be a lesson to you hearing parents of Deaf children.  Learn your child’s language:  in addition to just being the right thing to do, it could save you from sound-sensitive monsters someday.  (Side note:  Blunt and Krasinski’s signing is pretty good here, better than I usually see from hearing people in movies – looking at you, Sally Hawkins!  While their signs are by no means fluent, they’re not super stilted and choppy-looking, and Blunt in particular is quite expressive.)

Warnings

Monster violence, thematic elements, and tons of scariness.

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