A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018)
Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Leon Russom. Screenplay: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski. Cinematography: Charlotte Bruus Christensen. Production design: Jeffrey Beecroft. Film editing: Christopher Tellefsen. Music: Marco Beltrami.
Given the generally enthusiastic critical and audience reception of A Quiet Place, I was prepared to enjoy it. And for the most part I did. I liked the prevailing mood of the film, its sure-footed pacing and neatly timed shocks. But I am such an inveterate skeptic, such an indefatigable asker of Questions You're Not Supposed to Ask, that I wasn't completely won over. I found myself wondering why the Abbotts, so nicely played by John Krasinski and the always wonderful Emily Blunt, would conceive another child in the midst of post-apocalyptic horror. They have taken so much care, especially after the loss of one of their children, to maintain a life of silence, then why would they risk it all for such an uncontrollable noisemaker as an infant? And then, when their daughter discovers that the feedback from her malfunctioning hearing aid could disable one of the predators, I wondered why scientists and the military hadn't already figured out that the best way to attack creatures who hunt by sound is to turn that sense against them, or if they have, why they haven't come to the rescue of the Abbotts and their neighbors. These are quibbles, of course, but A Quiet Place is meant to be taken fairly seriously, as a drama of family dynamics -- the daughter feels guilty for the death of her little brother and thinks her father doesn't love her, while her remaining brother feels like he can't live up to the heroics of his father and her mother blames herself for the death of the child. In the end everything is subordinated to shocks and thrills, so that the film ends up like a more sophisticated version of a 1950s invaders from outer space movie, or a better-made episode of a series like The Walking Dead.