A Quiet Place takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the few humans left spend their days trying to not make any noise for fear of being attacked by creatures that can't see, but that will appear as if out of nowhere if you make the smallest sound. The film focuses on one particular family that appears to have been better-equipped to survive than most, given that their daughter is deaf and they are able to communicate by sign language. They also live in the country and have a garden and appear to can their own vegetables, plus they live within walking distance of a river where they can fish. We meet the family less than ninety days after the apocalypse, when their youngest child is killed tragically. Flash forward more than a year later; the mother is very pregnant, and the family struggles to survive while dealing with the loss of their youngest member and preparing for the birth of their newborn. The movie follows them through the next few fateful days.
There is plenty to like about the movie, particularly how tight the storytelling was; more than one friend remarked to me afterward that it seemed like it only lasted thirty minutes even though it was ninety-five minutes long. I also liked the tight focus on just ONE family, rather than the filmmakers trying to let us in on what's going on in the world or the United States as a whole (we see some newspaper clippings, but that's about it). The thing that compelled me to write about it when I haven't updated this blog in almost a year, though, are the issues that stuck with me afterwards, particularly...
...the fact that I went back and forth between being impressed by the parents' (played by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) survival skills and generally thinking they should be keeping a better eye on their kids. Their younger son dies when they are walking back home from a pharmacy, where they have gone to get medicine for their older son. The sound that makes the creature attack is a toy rocketship that his father told him he couldn't have, but that his older sister gave him anyway. It was stupid of his sister to give it to him, but she's just a kid, and trying to make him happy under pretty horrific circumstances. What bothered me is that the family was walking in a straight line, with the father at the front of the group carrying the sick child; the mother walking slightly behind; the sister behind her; and the youngest child bringing up the rear. Now, this kid appears to be maybe three or four. Who really lets a kid that age dawdle at the back of the group even when there ISN'T a predator willing to pounce at a moment's notice? If the dad was going to lead the way, shouldn't the mom have been following everyone to keep an eye on the kids? Later in the movie, the daughter goes off after her dad and brother leave on a fishing trip without her. HER MOM DOESN'T NOTICE SHE'S MISSING FOR HOURS. Granted, the mom eventually goes into labor, so that explains part of it, but it really seems like under these circumstances you would know where your kids are at ALL times.
While all of this bothered me, I think it's fairly realistic to expect that anyone would make some mistakes and that life would sort of just go on under these circumstances. Occasionally, someone would give a kid something they're not supposed to have. Occasionally, a family member would lag behind the group or go off by themselves and the rest of the family wouldn't immediately notice. The difference is that the stakes are so heightened here that small mistakes can have huge consequences, and it's easy to sit on the sidelines and point out what everyone's doing wrong, when I'm not sure how you could even live in constant fear like that.
...the mother's pregnancy. (IMDB tells me her name is Evelyn; I don't recall her ever being called by name). We catch up with the family fairly late in the pregnancy, when they are preparing by soundproofing a cellar/basement room for the baby. Can you even imagine the conversations that must have taken place when they realized Evelyn was pregnant? Obviously, you can't make a baby be quiet. What options must they have considered before they got around to soundproofing? How do you try to keep yourselves and the kids you already have safe while preparing for an addition to the family that is going to make doing so much more difficult? It's an incredibly uncomfortable thing to think about.
I really liked the movie as a whole. It says something that I'm still thinking about it a day later, and says more that a ninety-minute thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time can also sit with you so heavily.
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