A Quiet Place Day One Review: A Deeper Human Story!

The Quiet Place films, have cultivated its own group of fans in the sci-fi and horror genre. It was never a single gimmick of silence that carried the two films but instead the exploration of a family on the brink of death, trying to live in a world where silence is golden and the chance of survival is minimal.

After following the Abbott family for the first two films, director Michael Sarnoski (replacing John Krasinski) continues the franchise with his second feature film, after Pig (an incredible directorial debut). Finally, audiences are able to witness the first day these unknown and terrifying creatures made their way into our world. A Quiet Place: Day One opts for a deeper human story in the midst of “alien chaos” that continues Sarnoski’s streak of exceptionally directed films.

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Samira spends her days in hospice, fighting cancer and engaging in therapy group sessions with her service cat Frodo. Clearly, upset and angry at her fate, Samira disregards her nurse Reuben’s offer to come to a show in New York City with the group, that is until he mentions New York City pizza afterwards. What turns out to be a marionette show, sends Samira walking out, ready to get her pizza and go back to hospice.

While on the bus home, with no pizza in hand because of a “situation” going on in NYC, Samira, Reuben and the group find themselves in the line of “meteors” crashing down onto the city until they realize this is the least of their worries. Unknown creatures have inhabited the city and they are killing everyone and everything that makes a sound.

A Quiet Place: Day One has a script that is composed beautifully by Sarnoski to strengthen his audience’s connection to Samira and Eric (Joseph Quinn), a man Samira meets amidst the chaos. As it is already answered as to what will happen to the world after this day, the film spends its time introducing Samira and Eric and displaying the bond they develop with barely any knowledge of the other’s world prior. With little spoken in the film, Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn’s performances are astounding to watch, playing into the emotional weight of the film with facial expression and pain shown just through their eyes.

Although a prequel to A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II, it gives minimal answers to the questions audiences sought after from its previous films. However, this works in its favor watching two strangers. It doesn’t matter why the events are happening or what caused them. What matters is how Samira and Eric are affected by it and what this means for them individually and together just for one day.

Without a question the sound editing and mixing for A Quiet Place: Day One is of utmost importance. In this, the sound department for the movie makes every step and tap feel like it is at 90 decibels, what the film characterizes as a continuous scream. However, the sound in the film is produced with such expertise that no part of the film feels louder or softer than another (no turning the volume up and down constantly upon its eventual Blur-ray release!).

The score composed by Alexis Grapsas feels massively cinematic in its still and calming sound that greatly impacts the film’s more emotional scenes between Samira and Eric. Although the franchise’s effects and thrills make it popular among audiences, it is constantly taking its technical elements to the next level, sound being one of them, even for a film that “lacks” it.

Living versus surviving is commonly at the helm of apocalyptic cinema, meaning just because one is alive doesn’t mean they are truly living. For Samira, she believes her life is pointless and a means to a quick and eventual end. As she attempts to stay quiet in her surroundings, it is displayed that her will to live is stronger than she lets on. Especially, after meeting Eric through Frodo’s help.

As the film uncovers the simple pleasures of life that Samira still reaches for, it becomes a film about never letting the small pleasure be taken from us, even if life as a whole is slipping away. It intensifies its apocalyptic elements by focusing on two people rather than the world at large.

It feels more whole in this way, being specific in its character focus rather than grand in its world building. A Quiet Place: Day One has a clear idea as to the story it wants to tell and even if it leaves questions unanswered, where a common prequel may explain, Sarnoski’s talent and emphasis on his subjects make these questions feel irrelevant and the power of human connection at its center the strongest.

‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Rating – 4/5

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