As I sit here after watching A Quiet Place, struggling to write an introductory paragraph that will find an angle into the film, it strikes me as rather ironic, or perhaps just fitting, that a movie with almost no dialogue would leave me with little to say about it.
I don’t mean to imply that I disliked A Quiet Place. For a relatively low-budget production with an intentionally lean and stripped-down narrative, the 2018 apocalyptic horror thriller has a clever premise that director/star John Krasinski (yes, Jim from The Office) executes well. However, the movie also has very little meat on its bones. It’s exactly what it looks like from the trailers, and no more.
| Title: | A Quiet Place |
| Year of Release: | 2018 |
| Director: | John Krasinski |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray MGM+ Paramount+ Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
Krasinski plays a guy. He’s given a name in the end credits but I don’t recall ever hearing it mentioned in the body of the film. He has a wife (the actor’s real-life wife Emily Blunt) and threetwo young kids. They live in a post-apocalypse world where most of the human population has been wiped out by nasty monsters that move very quickly and have very large, very sharp teeth. The monsters are presumably aliens, though that’s only explicitly stated in the headline of an old newspaper half-glimpsed for a second in the background of a scene. I actually appreciate the economy of this storytelling. Krasinski understands that the audience will have already figured out the gist of the plot so he just gets on with it.
The monsters are armored with hardened, bulletproof shells and are nearly impossible to stop or kill. They’re blind, but have such incredible, ultra-sensitive hearing that even the slightest sound will rapidly attract them. That means the surviving humans can’t speak to one another beyond the most hushed of whispers. Conveniently, this family’s daughter is deaf, so they all know how to communicate in sign language. Even so, they must do everything possible to avoid making noises for fear of immediate death.
This is complicated by the fact that the wife is pregnant and soon to have a baby, which seems like a really irresponsible thing to do in an apocalypse. Early in the movie, we see them scrounging an old pharmacy for medications. Did the place not stock any condoms or birth control?
That’s kind of it. From just the description, you can see where this is going. Somebody will eventually make a noise, probably when the wife goes into labor. Monsters will come running, and the family will have to fight to stay alive. That’s precisely what happens, and the movie clocks out at a very tight 90 minutes.
The premise of monsters with super-hearing is neat, and Krasinski as director orchestrates some strong suspense set-pieces. A bit where the kids fall into a farm silo and nearly drown in grain while not being able to scream for help is both inventive and tense. Unfortunately, the script has a few notable lapses in logic or plausibility, and the climax relies heavily on the old cliché of a baby that somehow never cries or makes a noise until the drama of the scene requires it to. Anyone who’s ever had a child knows how absurd that is.
The resolution also leaves me questioning how no one else in the entire world had previously figured out what the deaf girl discovers. Frankly, it seemed obvious to me from the beginning. Hell, a few billion things on this planet should have driven the aliens away as soon as they got here.
A Quiet Place is the very model of a pretty okay movie. It’s made well and (unlike many similar blockbusters) isn’t too objectionably stupid. Nevertheless, beyond the silent gimmick, I’ve seen this story in a hundred other apocalypse movies and TV shows. Even themes of loss and trauma and parental guilt designed to add emotional depth feel old-hat.
Ultimately, I’m just left wanting more from the movie. Perhaps that’s what the sequel(s) and spinoff(s) are supposed to add, but I wish some movies today could stay self-contained and not require that a franchise be built around them to tell a complete or at least satisfying story.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
After its very successful theatrical run in April 2018, A Quiet Place had a quick release to home video, first to paid streaming only two months later in June and then to physical media in July. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray was reissued in 2021 as part of a “2-Movie Collection” packaged with the sequel, A Quiet Place: Part II. I have the solo version.
Photographed on Super 35 film for some reason (even of directors still attached to film, why Super 35?), the movie has a somewhat stylized appearance that I’m sure could have been achieved just as easily with digital cameras, the only difference of note being that the film version is a little softer. Daytime scenes look slightly bleached, while most of the movie takes place at night with heavy shadows. Perhaps Krasinski felt that film could render the contrast more to his liking? I’m not convinced that’s true, but the director and cinematographer get to decide.
As mentioned, the 2.40:1 image is a touch soft, not enough to be distracting, but also not enough that 4K resolution does much for it. Colors look nice. For such a dark movie, shadow detail is fine, at least in HDR. I haven’t compared against the regular Blu-ray.
Weirdly, the blurry and jaggy end credits seem to have been upconverted from a low resolution source.
Of its technical elements, the Dolby Atmos soundtrack is where the movie really shines. Because the sound design emphasizes quietness, every sound matters. Individual effects, and their locations and directionality, stand out much more clearly than typical action movies that try to bombard listeners with an indistinct cacophony of noise. When one of the monster creatures skitters around at night, you can tell precisely where and how it moves with pinpoint accuracy, all around the listening space and sometimes overhead. This is Atmos used to its best, but you really need to watch it in a quiet environment of your own.
Bonus features on the disc are limited to three promotional featurettes that I’ll never bother to watch.
Related:
Note: Screenshots on this page were taken from the Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
