Film Review: A Quiet Place

The directorial debut from John Krasinski, A Quiet Place is set in a post-apocalyptic world when a family of four – Lee (Krasinski), Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and Marcus (Noah Jupe) – is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing. If they hear you, they hunt you.

Rating:

A Quiet Place is a well-crafted horror with an original concept and genuine scares. As we watch this couple fight for survival after a supernatural force has invaded their isolated home, we follow them on a tense hunt that it is full of fear but also a brilliant exploration of the family dynamic.

Although there is very little dialogue, the family’s relationships with each other are still explored incredibly well. The performances are fantastic, too. You can feel every emotion they are feeling, especially from Millicent Simmonds who gives an exceptional performance, especially when you take into consideration that this is only her second feature-length role.

It’s also a great creature feature. Often, the appearance of the monster or alien can diminish the film’s credibility. But the monster has a decent appearance in this film and it is introduced brilliantly. I didn’t think we would get to see the monsters for ages, but Krasinski gets right to the point and shows you exactly what you need to be scared of.

The horror is so effective that I tiptoed out of my bedroom to nip to the toilet and then tried to silence a sneeze, which obviously didn’t work. But it really makes you wonder about whether you could survive an apocalypse like this. I very quickly determined that I would have given up very early on. Unless I lived with John Krasinski…

I’ve always been a fan of Krasinski so I’m just happy that more people are finally taking notice of him. And that my fancying of Jim Halpert in The US Office can no longer be considered as a “Weird Crush”. But more seriously, that he has taken his talent to a whole new level with such a well-directed film for his first effort. I could watch this film over and over again just for his perfomance, but there are many other reasons that this is a film that I will watch on repeat and the biggest one is just the exceptional quality of everything about it.