A Quiet Place: Day One Has An Unparalleled Story In A Sea Of Apocalypse Films
Audiences were instantly captivated by the world building that A Quiet Place delivered when it premiered in 2018. With audiences unmistakably ravenous for more of John Krasinski’s fascinating and immersive storytelling, A Quiet Place Part II quickly followed in 2020. Krasinski’s strong suit was evident in these two films. He had a knack for making us all connect with characters in a devastatingly cruel, dystopian world. Fans were in awe with the first two films, and that’s what made the announcement of a third film — a prequel — all the more exciting.
A Quiet Place: Day One follows Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), a young woman in hospice care who reluctantly agrees to go on a Manhattan outing with her hospice group — all in the hopes of getting a hot, savory slice of pizza. While there, New York City comes under alien attack. While others are fleeing to the seaport for refuge, Samira goes against the crowd, with her emotional support cat Frodo in tow. Why? Samira needs that slice of pizza.
Focusing the story on a terminally ill young woman was clever. Rather than wanting and trying to survive, Samira yearns for the complete opposite. I know I’ve never thought of this exact scenario while watching an apocalypse movie, but one thing I often wonder is — why the hell do these people want to live after the world has ended? But, for Samira, her world ended long before the physical world. For an apocalypse story? Genius. This choice in character allowed the alien facet to be more so submissive and serve as an undertone in what is otherwise a story of a broken women who needed the world to break to truly feel again.
That being said, this film wouldn’t have been as beautifully calamitous if it weren’t for Nyong'o’s presence. She was absolutely incredible. Preceding A Quiet Place veterans Emily Blunt and Krasinski have shown it’s no small feat to convey a range of the human experience with little to no dialogue, but Nyong'o did the damn thing because she is that woman. I won’t spoil anything, but I was viscerally sad (a fancy way of admitting I cried), toward the end of the film, because Nyong’o so effortlessly tied her characters entire existence into a neat, perfect bow for everyone to understand. Joseph Quinn bounced off Nyong’o’s radiance throughout the film and their characters complimented each other so well. It was on par with Joe and Ellie’s relationship in The Last of Us. Nyong’o and Quinn’s characters needed each other and there was a mutual understanding with myself as an audience member that it just made sense.
But, while the acting and story made all the sense in the world, there were some other choices in this film that dampened the overall experience for me. One of them being the cat. The cat may have been essential to the storyline according to the film’s director Michael Sarnoski, but I actually think it poked holes in the plot and overshadowed the depth of the character’s situation. At times the cat felt like a crutch in what would otherwise be pertinent world building. As a fan of the franchise, I would’ve loved to see more of what the city looked like on day one and how others were reacting to it outside of our protagonist. Instead, I felt tense watching it, merely because of a cat wandering the city, not because of the literal alien invasion.
Let me just say this — there’s no cat that doesn’t meow. On top of this, the cat somehow survives not one, but two near death drownings. The believability of all of it took me out of the depth of what I was supposed to feel when learning about a new character. Look, the cat was insanely cute and I really do love animals, but the cat doesn’t have any defining moments besides the audience rooting for it, because again, who doesn’t love a cat? I found myself more worried over where the cat was too. It truly left me confused at a few points, particularly when the cat is not in sight, then suddenly re-appeared in the next shot. I digress!
It was apparent Krasinski was not as involved in this film as this was the first in the franchise he didn’t direct. Choices such as the cat made that even more clear, and there were moments that dragged on a bit too long for my liking. Given the premise of the film, the tension is already there, but I felt as though the director dragged on parts and I was left waiting for more interactions between Nyong’o’s and Quinn’s characters. Fans have long known about the aliens and the fate that awaits them when a sound is made, but it was the glimpses we were spoon fed of Sam and Eric that made this movie all the more better. Yes, it’s an apocalypse movie, but A Quiet Place’s strong suit has been the character development and the apocalypse of it all is more so in the background. For example, the piano and pizza scene. It was heartwarming, brutally honest, and beautiful. I wanted to stay in that moment and if the movie ended right then and there, I’d be wonderfully content. It was such a critical breakthrough moment for the characters that every thing afterward felt insignificant in comparison.
A Quiet Place: Day One is certainly not one to be missed this year. Strong performances by Nyong’o and Quinn carry audiences through a story that’s unparalleled. And hey, if you like cats, Frodo undoubtedly gets a lot of screen time.
A Quiet Place: Day One is out in theaters now.
