Film review: A Quiet Place (2018)

This is one of those films that keeps you entirely in its grip while you're watching it, but falls apart rather as soon as you give it some thought.  The idea is that Earth has been invaded by carnivorous aliens (that look like giant skinned bats with heads like the Demogorgon thingie from Stranger Things) whose only sense seems to be hearing.  The film is about a single family living in a time just over a year after the invasion, where they have carved out a life for themselves just doing things really quietly, living in an idyllic little compound out in what looks like the woods of New England (with a small town within walking distance, that they can raid for supplies (like medicine, at the beginning of the film) when they need them).  This family is almost nauseatingly self-sufficient.  He's a handyman who can make anything, although he's struggling a bit perfecting a cochlear implant replacement for their daughter (eldest of three, or, for most of the film, two, and then three again).  She seems to provide the entire family with the most wonderful knitwear outside of a catalogue.  It's the hippy dream, albeit with killer monsters lurking in the undergrowth.  As I said, the film opens with them raiding the nearby town for medicine for their middle child, a boy, who is sick.  Their youngest boy, who is about 4, becomes enamored of a toy space shuttle, which the father says (well, signs - the advantage of having a deaf child is that they all know sign language) he can't have because it makes noises.  The daughter, though, gives him it sans batteries.  But he then pockets the batteries, and as they're walking back to their compound (on bare feet, despite it being obviously autumn, on a sand path they've constructed) in single file, with him at the rear, he re-inserts them and it goes off.

 Bye bye 4-year-old.  This is a bit of a gut punch for the opening of a movie (usually kids are off the menu, even in horror films, which is why Jaws is so upsetting), and of course it sets of a dynamic where the daughter blames herself and thinks that the father hates her for it.  We then cut to a lot later where the mother is heavily pregnant (which in itself is super annoying.  WHO THE FUCK WOULD GET PREGNANT WHEN THERE ARE KILLER MONSTERS AROUND, WHO WILL KILL ANYTHING THAT MAKES A SOUND?  And you're not telling me Plan B wasn't available from the same drug store they raid at the beginning?  There's a hint the family might be super religious, because they say grace at the beginning of their (sumptuous) dinner (they maintain better dinner decorum in an apocalypse than we have ever managed with our kids), but still.)  The father decides that it's time to take the surviving son (who is understandably super-spooked) off to the fish traps in the river, leaving the girl behind to "take care" of her mother.  She doesn't want to, and sneaks off shortly to leave the (presumably retrieved) space shuttle toy (which has been de-noisified) at the little memorial to the eaten son.  Meanwhile (betcha didn't see that coming!) the mother's water breaks early, she steps on a nail, and a monster gets in the house.  From that point on it's pretty much constant tension.  So what's the problem?  Well, like the superior, but also hole-filled It Follows, all sorts of questions present themselves.  Why don't they move near a giant waterfall (like, you know, Niagara) as it's made clear you can make noise when you're by the river because it drowns you out.  Surely, though, the aliens can do more than just hear.  How do they get around?  They make clicking noises as if they echo-locate, so shouldn't they be able to detect movement?  Why can't they smell?  It takes the girl forever to work out an obvious weakness with these creatures, which the audience realizes instantly (and the army should've a long time ago) so how were they able to conquer the world?  Also, couldn't everyone just hide in soundproofed recording studios?  And, although the word "armored" is written on the father's brainstorming whiteboard, turns out a shotgun to the face is pretty effective, so, again, you'd think the army might've had some success.

Overall: it's sort of a cross between Pitch Black and I Am Legend, only more PG-13 (the most upsetting gore is the mother stepping on a nail).  The contrast between this and the last film we watched is instructive: both are artificial, of course, but I find I think about and cared about the archetypes of A Girl Walks Home than the family I'm practically bludgeoned into caring about in this film.  And while this one was universally praised as tautly constructed ("not an ounce of fat on it") and indeed, does keep you gripped very successfully, while Girl is just a series of vignettes strung together, I found myself absorbed by that world more completely.  Perhaps it's that the family in this is so damn saintly.  Yes, there's minor teenage rebellion on the part of the daughter, but the father is practically Jesus (in many respects), and I like my characters under pressure to crack a little.  But I'll still check out the sequel - out soon!