A Quiet Place: Day One
Paramount PicturesWith John Krasinski busy tickling the imagination of children with IF, Paramount is going full steam ahead by expanding the Quiet Place saga with the prequel A Quiet Place: Day One. Stepping in Krasinski’s directorial shoes is Michael Sarnoski, fresh off the critical acclaim of 2021’s Pig. Jeff Nichols was initially hired to helm the picture but left due to creative differences, and Sarnoski filled in the gap. Nichols went on to helm The Bikeriders, which is arguably his worst movie. Had he stayed to shepherd A Quiet Place: Day One, it would perhaps have been more watchable than what the film is ultimately left with, especially with its visual style that can never emulate the terrifying aura of Krasinski’s first two movies, let alone competently shoot action in a way that feels engaging and anxiety-inducing.
The entire conceit of A Quiet Place is based on visual and aural storytelling. There are few moments in which the characters can talk to one another – only when it rains (which does not occur very often in the movie’s dystopian future). Beyond that, no one can make a sound, revolving their lives around the idea of not doing so. The cold open of Krasinski’s A Quiet Place: Part II shows how the life of Lee Abbott’s (Krasinski) family was upended when the aliens who crash-landed on Earth began slaughtering humans who made sounds. It was a thrilling moment and the best scene of Krasinski’s sequel that paved the way for what is currently released in cinemas, showing how the attack on Earth all began through the perspective of different protagonists.
Djimon Hounsou does reprise his role as the Man on the Island from A Quiet Place: Part II, but the rest of the film examines the event through Sam’s (Lupita Nyong’o) point of view. A terminal cancer patient spending her remaining days in hospice care, she goes to New York City with her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff), who has decided to take patients who are able-bodied enough to a play, as it may be their last time traveling to the city. During it, military trucks and airplanes populate the city, and life as they know it is suddenly gone.
Knowing she does not have much time left, and the world has now gone to complete shit with the arrival of an extraterrestrial race that kills anyone who makes any form of sound, Sam desires to have one last slice of New York pizza before the grim reaper comes knocking at her door. She travels with that desire and meets Eric (Joseph Quinn), who, after saving his life, accompanies her throughout her journey to a Harlem pizza joint.
Of course, this gives Sam purpose and a journey for the audience to follow. The only problem is that the writing is on the wall from the beginning, and there’s zero sense of suspense on whether the characters will live or die. The sole choice of making your protagonist a terminal cancer patient will ensure that she will not live past the film – the only thing the audience doesn’t know is if she will sacrifice herself to save Eric à la Lee Abbott or if the disease will succumb to her first. This removes the suspense surrounding this disastrous alien arrival, and any attempt at the audience attaching themselves to the character. The only one they can latch onto is Eric, since he isn’t riddled with disease and has an arc that screams ‘redemption.’
Well, the two are longing for redemption. Sam wants to ‘live a little’ more before her time comes, whilst Eric has nothing to live for anymore and must find purpose in this ‘new normal.’ He helps Sam out, but the two never truly bond. The only instances audiences get of their connection is during a scene in which Eric reads one of Sam’s poems, understanding that she’s dying, and another mawkish scene where Eric performs a magic trick to Sam. The rest has minimal character development, either through Nyong’o and Quinn’s facial expressions and restrained physique as they attempt to navigate this reality by not making a sound or during scenes in which they can talk, such as in a large thunderstorm.
Nyong’o and Quinn are fine as the main protagonists, but they pale in comparison to the emotionally complex performances brought by Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds in the flagship Quiet Place films. What ultimately sinks both characters is how textbook their arcs are formed within the movie. Everyone knows where they will end up by the time the film is over, and Sarnoski takes virtually no surprises with their personal journeys through his screenplay (Sam’s cat, Frodo, is cute, but he quickly becomes a distraction to hide its storytelling shortcomings).
It also doesn’t help that Sarnoski possesses no skills at crafting action that fully takes advantage of the visual and aural experience that Krasinski’s Quiet Place films offered. Perhaps Krasinski is not the best screenwriter and filmmaker in the world, but he has a much better sense of establishing tension and pure dread through his Quiet Place pictures, while also frequently subverting horror tropes with unpredictable antagonists who can pop out at any second and lurk everywhere, waiting for someone to say (or do) something that’ll produce noise.
With cinematographer Pat Scola, Sarnoski produces no images of note through its action, either shrouding what could be extreme claustrophobia released in such a terrifying way inside a crowd with thick fog, weirdly blocking the camera in impossible angles that never makes us appreciate the on-screen carnage, or covering the extraterrestrials’ movements in total darkness. The only competent action scene occurs in an office building, with the sweeping tracking shots of Eric and Sam running away from the aliens adding the only amount of fear the invasion has brought upon to the city. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long enough to make an impact.
What audiences are ultimately left with is a narratively inert and dull story that makes its point by the middle section. A few scenes initially grabbed our attention, but never enough to fully invest ourselves in the prequel. It also doesn’t expand the Quiet Place universe meaningfully, whether in the audiences’ understanding of the attack or in how different characters react to the new threat. Rather, it’s an extended prologue to A Quiet Place: Part II, with Hounsou’s Henri acting as the bridger of the gap between the prequel and the sequel, with a predictable structure involving protagonists no one is truly invested in since their arcs are written in the sky. Because of this, Day One won’t be remembered as the franchise’s finest hour, though there’s hope the upcoming Krasinski-directed Part III will close out the trilogy satisfactorily. After a detour in the family department with IF, it’s high time for Krasinski to return to horror and bring this franchise back from the dreary soulless cash-grab prequel of Sarnoski’s Day One, and conclude his Quiet Place movies on a high, and not on such an abysmal level.