A QUIET PLACE – DAY ONE: Movie Review

Since the debut of A Quiet Place in 2018, we have been following the Abbott family as they navigated the post-apocalyptic terrain of a world that had gone silent. From director John Krasinski, both the first AQP films worked because of their tense, contained setting and strong focus on the resilience of family, through even the most difficult of circumstances. With A Quiet Place: Day One, the franchise expands into an urban setting, where we follow characters attempting to survive in the initial days of the alien attack. Directed by Michael Sarnoski, the acclaimed filmmaker behind the incredible film Pig, A Quiet Place: Day One is written like a drama with sci-fi elements, featuring themes of love, loss, and human connection. It’s a great framework for a franchise that continues to have a focus on the humanity of disaster, but A Quiet Place: Day One simply isn’t as poignant or riveting as the preceding films. Additionally, the film’s use of NYC is creative and makes for interesting sequences, but spoils some of the mystery and illusion settled in by the first two films. As a stand-alone feature, A Quiet Place: Day One has its moments, but fails to work up the clever smarts needed to ground this story in a place of tension.

A Quiet Place: Day One features lead performances from Academy Award winning performer Lupita Nyong’o, who has previously forayed into horror with Jordan Peele’s Us, and Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn. Nyong’o is a bit underwhelming here as Sam, and this is definitely one of the more flat performances from an otherwise seasoned performer, who doesn’t go beyond the basic with her turn. Quinn is in slightly better form, with a vulnerable turn as Eric, a terrified law student trying his best to survive despite his anxieties. The script for A Quiet Place: Day One hinges upon the friendship these two characters share but the emotional bond never comes out very strongly through the performances; somehow, even by the end, we still feel distant from Sam and Eric.

Director Michael Sarnoski smartly imbues the script for this film with human, almost poetic, stakes; at its center, this is a film about loss, longing, and the value of dreams and life. Even though that emotion doesn’t come across thoroughly through the performances, the script is ambitious in trying to find the humanity behind what it could have easily been a more straightforward and reductive sci-fi franchise prequel. However, A Quiet Place: Day One lacks its smarts in other places, as it over-utilizes cheapy jump scares that drain out the sense of tension and atmosphere that this franchise is known for. Perhaps one of the most grating elements of the film might be way that the script over-relies on the protagonist’s cat, using it as a narrative crutch anytime the script requires yet another scare sequence or for the characters to move from one place or another. There are a handful of terrifying moments in A Quiet Place: Day One but this film loses the sense of mystery and extreme tension that benefited the first two films. While it is watchable, in many ways, A Quiet Place: Day One feels like an extraneous release, one that doesn’t add too much to the franchise and almost seems to interrupt the flow of the first two films.