If I had 30 seconds: A Quiet Place is smart. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, or cynically sell you something you’ve seen a million times. Outside of its great premise, A Quiet Place works because it’s just so well made. It knows when to let you breathe and when ramp up the tension. Its script is so well structured and its pace is airtight. The jump scares are well orchestrated and its characters feel authentic. If you’re looking for a fun thriller at the theatre that isn’t directed by Steven Spielberg, this is a must.
The Long Version: John Krasinski directorial debut The Hollars was … not very good. It wasn’t an actively bad film; it was just every quirky indie cliché. And this came while John Krasinski was hell-bent on making you forget he was in The Office. I have to admit, there were a couple of moments of unintentional comedy when you see a man running to save his family with an axe and you saying to yourself “That’s Jim from The Office”. But while his performance was good, his direction is what shines. For his second film Krasinski has a lot of control over what the audience feels, sees and hears. He understood the structure so well that I’m now firmly on board with him as a director.
It also helps that he has a fantastic script to back him up. The script does a great job surprising and telegraphing you with its major beats.It sets up everything so well and uses its payoff to full effect. The flagship scene comes towards the second third of the film with Emily Blunt’s character and stairs. All I can say. The film never feels like its missing something, overindulging or overstaying its welcome, its razor sharp that way.
Emily Blunt steals the show, no question. I mentioned a certain scene in the last paragraph and it really showcases how agile of a performer she is. She goes through emotional hell in this film and being able to communicate that without any dialogue is one of the holy grails of acting. It’s the moments where you see her wanting to scream out of pain, anger or sadness and yet push it down because she knows it will kill her family, that is A Quiet Place at its most powerful.
Finally, to close this all out; I have to mention the sound designer, by name: Erik Aadahl was the supervising sound editor on this film and he is this film’s secret weapon. He fills this world with such dread and tension; you can feel yourself being wound up with every twig being stepped on, wind blowing and wood creaking. Its rare for a Hollywood film to rely so much on sound to tell its story. Since this is one of those occasions, I feel the entire sound team should get a bit of the spotlight.
