A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place has such a terribly well-constructed world, such a brilliantly layered narrative and such precisely built tension that one does not want to spoil it with nitpicking and cynical remarks. And there would be a number of them, the first of which being how suicidal it is to walk through this world with a spoiled teenager around one’s neck. However, that is not the case here and similar comments show defects in us rather than in the film. A Quiet Place may faulter in particular mishaps, but its power comes from its excellently thought-out world and its presentation through narration. And just like a slice of life from this unique world, the film is absorbing and fascinating. (05/16/2020)

A great idea which sweetened the horror waters of the year 2018. A movie where there is little talking, because it’s set in a dystopian world with an extraterrestrial civilization that destroys everything that speaks aloud. There is a whole array of logical errors, but the simplicity and originality overshadow the contents. The suspense is literally spouting from the movie and the married couple Emily Blunt and John Karsinski are truly enjoying this family horror drama. Just like the viewer, after all. Only from a slightly different perspective. (10/11/2018)

What seems to be a boosted Spielberg style family drama with a clear concept that sets the rules by inner tension in the first half (before the fireworks) is a silly survival low-budget movie with cheap spooky sequences constantly violating the rules, showing one logical lapse after another and following the scheme of genre clichés the second half (after the shower). Slowly built tension in Shyamalan style (from the times of the Signs) versus glitz and dull-acting characters pushed like puppets moving from one adrenaline-packed adventure to another. The first half is excellent, the second is solid. But they are incompatible and go against each other. This should have been either a quiet cat with soft paws or an insanely barking dog during the whole footage but it is something in between. As a result, the most impressive part is prologue, which would perfectly work as a self-sufficient short-movie; (04/30/2018)

My comment will not contain anything new. Many others have already noticed that Krasinski devotes much more energy and attention to building tension in individual scenes and achieving immediate effects at the expense of elementary logic and believability of the world he presents. You will enjoy A Quiet Place the more you refrain from thinking about logical inconsistencies and immerse yourself in the story with your brain turned off. Reflecting on how creatures so easily vulnerable could have taken over the world means spoiling the experience. If humanity was so witless that it allowed itself to be massacred by these nobodies, then it simply deserved its decline and exit from the stage. If you refuse the approach of "it happened, don't question it," you will suffer just like me. And rightly so. Overall impression: 40%. (04/09/2019)

A Quiet Place is primarily an outstanding psychological drama about loss (of a loved one, one’s own voice) and the impossibility of letting go of the attendant pain (which, however, can be turned into strength, an idea on which the film’s climax is partly based). The characters have to keep all of their emotions bottled up inside, which only deepens the trauma. Their resources and manifestations of joy, which would bring them relief, are severely limited. Playing the game on which today’s society is based (because we do not want only to consume, but also to have fun) means risking one’s life. In this respect, the film is the antithesis of the dystopia of Ready Player One, which depicts a society focused solely on playing a game. The initial tragedy occurs because of a toy, the next one nearly happens while playing a board game (typically, that game is Monopoly – this is the only way that the characters can treat themselves to the pleasure of shopping). Partners can dance only while wearing headphones; otherwise the use of the technologies on which we are so dependent today is practically out of the question. Thanks to the superb actors, information conveyed in the mise-en-scène and the way the characters react in certain situations, we always understand what the protagonists are going through and what they are doing, even though there is almost no dialogue in the film. It is in this aspect that I see the film’s main element of exceptionalism. It shows what many directors have learned in (not quite) a hundred years of cinematic sound design – how a psychologically layered story can be told without words. Due to the focus on the characters, the slower middle section of the film, the woman’s decision to conceive another child (to fill the void) and some slightly sentimental moments (which, however, are disturbing only when applying a purely horror reading) find their justification. As a horror movie, Krasinski’s film is brilliantly directed and hardly allows us to breathe, even though he uses relatively well-known tricks and rarely gathers the courage to be truly silent. Not only with its content, but also its style, A Quiet Place essentially confirms that American filmmakers fear few things more than absolute silence. The film is thus not remarkable so much because of its work with silence than as a clear connection between the basic conditions for survival in the given fictional world (on must not make any louder sounds) and what the characters are going through. The fact that the film ends in the best way (without eliciting the feeling that something essential remains unexplained) compelled me to add a fifth star to the obvious four. 90% (04/24/2018)