Save the Cat
Give this man an animal. Incoming director Michael Sarnoski takes the Quiet Place series down a new road.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Director: Michael Sarnoski • Writer: Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou, Schnitzel, Nico
USA • 1hr 39mins
Opens Hong Kong June 27 • IIB
Grade: B+
I, and many, many other people you probably know, can tell you with great confidence that the most ridiculous thing in A Quiet Place: Day One – a horror-drama about sound-sensitive aliens with bulbous vagina mouths and no eyes (?) who drop from the sky without warning one day – is that Frodo the service cat doesn’t come out of the Harlem River (or any river) claws first and furious. His human, Samira (an ultra-nuanced Lupita Nyong’o), and her travelling companion Eric (discount Robert Downey Jr, Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things) don’t ever run the risk of bleeding to death when Frodo decides enough’s enough and goes full feline on their asses. He also allows himself to be cuddled. No. Just. No.
But maybe the animal element is to be expected from Pig director Michael Sarnoski, who takes the reins from John Krasinski (off making IF) for a prequel entry into the franchise. The story is as simple as any Quiet Place entry, this time following end-stage cancer patient Samira on a mission to get to a Harlem pizzeria for a slice, right near the jazz club her dead father played at when she was a kid. Along the way she and Frodo pick up Eric, and try as she does to send him to the southern port where the National Guard is evacuating invasion survivors from Manhattan, he tags along. That Sarnoski manages yet another film that engages audiences enough to keep their damn phones off for 100 minutes is no small miracle, one made even more astonishing by the fact that the film is as much, if not more, a meditation on mortality and agency as it is an alien invasion thriller – an unnecessary one at that. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
No cat is that cool
Warning: If you’re looking for alien backstory in this prequel, sorry. There isn’t any. Day One begins at Samira’s hospice, with nurse-counsellor Reuben (Alex Wolff, Old) tricking the bitchy poet into an afternoon in the city, which she notes could easily be her last. Samira gets on the bus with the rest of the terminal cases, and they all wind up at a marionette show near Chinatown. It’s there she meets Henri (Djimon Hounsou) when his son is charmed by Frodo (remember, service cat, so he’s in the theatre), who we know makes it to the island sanctuary in A Quiet Place Part II. Similar to the way Krasinski set up an average day going way off the rails in the second film, Sarnoski sets up an average day going off the rails in New York City – which is much, much, much noisier than Krasinski’s small town upstate and so a much, much, much meatier target for the aliens than Millbrook was. After a night in the theatre and sheltering in place (this again), Samira sets off for Harlem, which is a long walk uptown. Samira is weak, so when she runs into Eric – a Brit in the US for law school (?) and far from home – her resolve to solitude crumbles, particularly when confronted by his abject terror and unwelcome solitude.
A Quiet Place: Day One is the most thematically ambitious of the series so far. Yes, there are some good shocks, plenty of solid CGI, and a frantic invasion sequence of mass destruction, running, screaming and military impotence. The aliens are as creepy as ever and the tension created by trying to keep it the fuck down remains. It still feels like the end of the world, and Sarnoski clearly understands the language of invasion horror, but in truth he’s more interested in how a looming apocalypse impacts us on a personal level. He’s keen to usurp the invasion drama the same way he did the revenge thriller in Pig, and revels in putting an unconventional heroine at the heart of the story. What really drives it this time is the desperate, last-minute bond that Samira and Eric forge, and the tension inherent between the two of them. Eric wants to get on one of those rescue boats. She’s dying, so she’s indifferent, but finding Eric to take care of Frodo (played by obviously drugged up cats Schnitzel and Nico) is a reassurance she didn’t know she needed. Being able to accompany her on what becomes a meaningful pilgrimage gives Eric the task that focuses him until he gets to safety. It makes for a denser, more thoughtful end-of-the-world dynamic than the first films presented, where everyone was united in surviving. Nyong’o and Quinn pull it off too (there are a couple of boneheaded moments, but they have to be there to get from A to Z), creating characters you get invested in with almost no dialogue. Samira’s bittersweet determination to go out on her own terms is the unspoken thread that pulls the story together and keeps it together, right up to the tremendous and cathartic final shot. Nina Simone is never wrong. — DEK
More End Times
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), d: Philip Kaufman
The late, great, memeable Donald Sutherland stars in the GOAT alien doppelgänger chiller and makes bleak, downbeat endings cool.
Last Night (1998), d: Don McKellar
Sandra Oh leads this Canadian hidden gem end-of-the-world dramedy – lots of “Sorry” – about a bunch of Torontonians struggling with apocalyptic apathy.
Deep Impact (1998), d: Mimi Leder
Armageddon was flashy and Aerosmith-y but this is the headier meditation on an extinction event. It’s also better and bleaker than you remember it was.