Of the many alarming trends in modern blockbuster cinema, one of the most irksome is how studios hire indie filmmakers to make bland mainstream entertainments. Chloé Zhao made a Marvel movie, for example, and later this year we will see Barry Jenkins’ sequel to the “live action” remake of The Lion King. A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to 2018’s A Quiet Place, is the most recent example of this strange trend. The film’s writer and director is Michael Sarnoski, known for making the unusual drama Pig, starring Nicolas Cage. That film starts like a thriller, only to become a gentle film about the nurturing, communal power of food. It features monologues of halting beauty, not action, so why hire Sarnoski for a post-apocalyptic thriller defined by silence? It turns out the common ground between the films is deeper than you might think. They both explore grief and unexpected sources of healing. The latter just happens to also involve deadly aliens.
Directed by and co-starring John Krasinski, the original A Quiet Place follows a family living nearly three months after a deadly alien invasion. These creatures cannot see, but they have incredibly sensitive hearing, so when they hear the slightest noise, they rush to its source and destroy it. Day One begins moments before the initial invasion—with the aliens landing like comets—and it follows Sam (Lupita Nyong’o), a cancer patient in hospice care who visits New York City with the rest of her ward to see a puppet show. Sam misses the initial wave of terror because something knocks her out, and when she wakes, everyone has already figured out they must not make any noise.
It is a shrewd choice to give Sam a terminal illness, as her priorities are different from those without any illness. When she makes herself vulnerable by leaving the group, her reasons are almost justifiable. Rather than survive or find safety, Sam wants a slice of pizza from her favorite spot in Harlem—a goal that gives her purpose and a journey (the fixation on food is another similarity between this film and Pig). A more important choice is to give Sam a companion: her adorable service animal, a cat named Frodo.
Cats are notoriously difficult to handle on movie sets, and yet Frodo (played by two cats named Schnitzel and Nico) never gives that impression. He is incredibly relaxed, even when Sam has no choice but to completely submerge him in water. Perhaps this is because, as a service animal, he has empathy and situational awareness that most cats do not develop. Sarnoski also avoids the dumb cliché of making Frodo a source of potential terror, staying away from scenes where he hisses or meows at the most inopportune moment. Instead, Sam looks at him and feels calm, a brief reprieve from the pain caused by her disease. Frodo’s vibe also leaves an impression on Eric (Joseph Quinn), an English law student who locks eyes with Frodo and follows him, more out of trust than desperation.
A Quiet Place: Day One is an unlikely two-hander, with Eric and Sam forging a connection in incredibly unlikely circumstances. Yes, there are terrifying sequences, like when the pair (along with Frodo) wander into a subway tunnel, and yet Sarnoski gives more attention to the moments of reprieve, like when the noise of a thunderstorm gives them the opportunity to have an actual conversation. We can see why they work as a pair: Eric is prone to panic attacks, but he is smart and resourceful, while Sam is capable of extreme calm because her Zen approach to negative stimuli is the only way she can get through bouts of unspeakable pain. Again, Sarnoski avoids the easy cliché of making their relationship a romance, and instead creates a bond that is ultimately deeper than that. Maybe that is why it is smart to hire indie directors for such big budget films: they are less inclined to make the easy choice.
The expanded scope of Day One is not without its flaws. The narrative is nowhere as tight as the original film, and without much spoken dialogue, some character choices can be inexplicable. Sarnoski also does not have the same flair for suspense as his predecessor, so the big scenes where we wait for an alien attack lack the same sense of anxiety or dread. But the genre goods are competent enough to hold our attention, and more importantly, the character stuff in this film is sometimes moving. Nyong’o and Quinn are well-cast, their eyes expressive in modes beyond pure terror, and so the film’s denouement—which is almost sudden—comes with a shared, unspoken understanding. Honestly, many movie flaws can be forgiven with a good final image, and A Quiet Place: Day One has a brusque, satisfying last shot that’s maybe the year’s best so far. It would be criminal to spoil it, so let’s just say it includes enough layers of irony to make you wonder why you are left smiling.
Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
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