How A Quiet Place: Day One Reinvents the Idea of Survival
Empty Hollywood creature feature? Look closer. This surprisingly savvy prequel will get you right in the feels thanks to a bold and unlikely heroine.
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8 months ago
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Shhhhh. We’ve lowered the decibels WAY down this week for A Quiet Place: Day One – the third film in an intelligent and heartfelt franchise about surviving deadly roaming aliens. If you’ve never seen them, the premise is genius: these ET’s can’t see, and they can’t swim, but their hearing is sharper than a Ginsu knife. Accidentally snap one twig and you’re toast.
Seems like a left field choice? Your impact entertainment-focused friends, delving deeper into a… [checks notes] …monster movie? Trust us. This is a prequel with more going on than your standard run-away-screaming cash grab. Unlike most genre cinema, the humanity and emotions of A Quiet Place: Day One come through surprisingly loud and clear.
That’s largely thanks to everyman John Krasinski (The Office), who’s developed a solid rep for tackling studio projects with a thoughtfulness you mightn’t expect – from the first films in the Quiet Place mythology (which he wrote, produced and directed), to his kids’ outing IF, which we broke down here. To helm the third entry, he’s onboarded indie director Michael Sarnoski, whose last feature Pig was another meditative film about loss with an animal co-star.
This time, Sarnoski swaps swine for feline, putting a “service cat” in the hands of Samira (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o), who’s our big screen heroine as the sound-sensitive aliens arrive on Earth for the very first time. So straight away, A Quiet Place: Day One stands out as a genre flick with a difference. A franchise movie starring a Kenyan-Mexican woman, whose character has a wholly different outlook on survival – because she has terminal cancer.
Big credit belongs to Krasinski and team for including a potentially off-putting (and totally not-blockbustery) theme like terminal illness in their franchise flick. Not just including, but wrapping their story around it. It’s a startling way to reframe ideas like mortality, sacrifice and survival. As Sarnoski puts it, “I haven't seen a terminally ill character deal with this kind of environment before… What would it mean to her if the world suddenly felt like it was also dying around her?”
How does A Quiet Place: Day One use terminal illness as a strength?
Sarnoski and Nyong’o aren’t shy about leaning into the reality of Samira’s diagnosis, and the dark humour she resorts to in dealing with her situation. We first meet her character, a poet, in a hospice care group. She’s reading aloud her new poem (“Cancer is Shit”), where she lists all the things about cancer that are “shit” – the food, the pain, the nurses, the boredom. “It’s not finished”, she shrugs, as the group stares.
It’s a fascinating choice to give the film’s core character zero hope. There’s no dangling carrot of a miracle cure here; no Hollywood redemption on the cards. Sam’s going to die, someday soon, and she’s accepted it. It instantly flips the tropes of a survival movie when the hero knows from the outset they won’t “make it”. It poses the question: when the creatures attack, why hide? Why not just walk into their path? What compels a terminal cancer patient to fight back? These questions have all been thought through, and the answers are slowly layered in.
The film captures a sense of disillusionment, almost roboticism, of living with cancer. Every day feels the same. Sam watches the dull routine of the other patients in hospice – getting a haircut. Slowly playing Solitaire. She puts on a fresh transdermal patch (fentanyl) to get her through the day. Asked “How's your pain?”, she replies with a flat “Three.” Later, she bluntly sighs to a carer who’s trying to bond, “You're not my friend. You're a nurse.” The only thing she truly cares about is her beloved black & white cat – oh, and a hot slice of her favourite pizza.
It’s why she leaps at the chance to take a group bus trip into NYC. Not for the crappy puppet show the rest are going to see; all Sam wants is a decent pizza before she dies. Things go a bit awry when the city is peppered by meteorites with swarms of deadly aliens inside, though – not your typical Tuesday. It’s a kind of gallows humour that, even after this cataclysmic event, Sam’s surface goal doesn’t change. The city’s crawling with creatures who’ll rip you apart at the slightest sound, and STILL all Sam wants is a decent pizza before she dies.
Sarnoski includes some potent allegories that simply wouldn’t have the same punch if Samira was a healthy “regular” hero. Like in the immediate confusion of the meteorite shower – where it’s unclear if the city is under attack – and everything's whited out by dust and ash and panic. As a pale haze envelops Sam and the crowds, it looks just like classic visuals of “the afterlife” where the dying head towards the light. Is that a moment Sam’s already envisioned before, wondering if it’s going to happen to her too?
Later on, a character finds a book she published and asks, surprised, “You're a poet?” Sam responds “Not anymore", which you can read as “Not now that the world has changed.” But the deeper meaning might be that cancer stripped Sam of her purpose as an artist. That small touch is a key ingredient in making the end of Sam’s story (which we won’t spoil!) so satisfying: Sam gets to reclaim her purpose. Cancer may have given her a life sentence, but she gets to create a final moment of powerful choice.
How does A Quiet Place: Day One explore the human side of disaster?
For all its exploding glass and screaming space aliens, A Quiet Place: Day One is a much more intimate film than you might expect. Or “tender” might be a better word. The story becomes a two-hander when Sam turns her back on the evacuating crowds, and a shellshocked law student, Eric (Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things) follows her out of fascination. Does she need help? Doesn’t she realise the escape route is that-a-way?
In their surreal situation, Sam and Eric form an emotional, non-romantic connection built on, quite literally, unspoken trust (it’s another rarity for a Hollywood film: guy ‘n’ girl are usually designed to get together and get it on). Total strangers, they share a kindred sense that they’re both trapped by something beyond the creatures. Unlike Sam, Eric isn’t dying, but he IS lost. As a foreigner (he’s British) he already feels displaced and unsure of his purpose. “Studying law was all I was meant to do.”
In one scene during an electrical storm, Sam and Eric hide out in her old apartment; the one she left to go into hospice care. Without saying a word, on the thunderclaps they both decide to scream in tandem. They’re not hollering for help – it’s catharsis. We get the feeling it’s the first time in a long time either of them have let their emotions – fear, isolation, loneliness, grief – flood out. If there’s a silver lining to natural (or even supernatural) disasters, it’s that they give strangers the common ground to connect with each other.
Light spoiler ahead – if you’re thinking Sam’s “pizza goal” is a bit of a silly quest, a more meaningful backstory emerges. It’s tied to Sam’s memories of her late father, a jazz pianist, who used to treat his young daughter to a slice after he performed in the city. We see a photo of it, and the look of pure joy and safety on Sam’s face, looking up at her Dad, is palpable. It’s a great example of Eric’s quiet empathy that, when he realises Sam has no intention of leaving the city, he leads her to that very same jazz bar, and puts on a silent show for her. It’s a beautiful, delicate scene; one that sums up Day One’s aims to connect a little deeper.
How does A Quiet Place: Day One feel different to other blockbusters?
Aside from Day One’s nihilism and its humanity, there’s another factor at play. It’s tough to describe, but the best way to put it might be the film’s overall sensitivity. It’s there visually, in the shot selections. Emotionally, in the characters’ quieter moments. And metaphorically, in the parallels Sarnoski draws between the NYC we know and the disaster zone we see on screen.
For example, DP Pat Scola uses defocus techniques to draw our attention to small, tactile elements that blockbusters usually ignore. Charred debris perched atop a busted traffic light. Blood smeared on the door of a police cruiser. One of the city’s famous cement chess boards, abandoned in the park. Slowing down to allow breathing space for these touchpoints renders A Quiet Place: Day One all the more human.
Similarly, Sarnoski pauses when Samira discovers an old bookstore with second-hand volumes scattered by the broken door. As she leafs through the pages, it’s framed like a rediscovery; a tiny, joyous act of mindfulness to stop, close her eyes and smell the ink and paper. It’s also an insight into character: as a poet, words (and by extension, books and literature) are Sam’s lifeblood. You’d swear she draws almost as much nourishment from breathing in that book as she would devouring that pizza she’s yearning for.
As dazed crowds wander the city caked in ash, it’s impossible not to feel a visceral parallel to the scenes of 9/11, and the abject confusion and horror those attacks provoked. When the camera sinks into a flooded subway stairwell, we claustrophobically catch our breath (even before one of the film’s best jump scares bursts out of the water). Later, Eric leaves Sam in the safe shelter of an abandoned church to raid a pharmacy for more fentanyl patches. When he returns with them, and the synthetic opioid soaks blissfully into Sam’s system, light pours through the damaged church roof. It’s salvation – albeit a temporary one – from her pain.
What are critics saying about A Quiet Place: Day One?
“It’s not often we get a post-apocalyptic saga that remains so personal, so in touch with human loss as something given room to linger.”
- David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Elevated by Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn’s affecting performances… a surprisingly tender tale of the end of days.”
- Ben Travis, Empire Magazine
“The big bombastic noise is often a distraction from something far more intimate, and existentially beautiful.”
- Justin Clark, Slant Magazine
What’s your take - fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear it.
So what’s the takeaway from A Quiet Place: Day One?
Usually, a really good threequel is the exception rather than the rule. They’re often the same cast retreading a winning formula (say, The Hangover Part III) or an iconic piece of IP being retconned with middling results (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). Yet the third Quiet Place avoids the traps with a string of bold and meaningful choices.
Choice 1: attention-grabbing metaphors. The very first caption when the film opens tells us: “New York City gives off an average of 90 decibels. That is equivalent to a constant scream.” Yikes – that’s a crippling stat when you’re trying to avoid aliens attracted to sound. But equating a metropolis’ natural soundscape to a never-ending scream is also a pretty potent allegory to the crushing pressures of living in the world’s most expensive city (regardless of whether ravenous ET’s are invading).
Choice 2: the directing. Michael Sarnoski has a sophisticated economy to his storytelling; he doesn’t use fifteen angles when one will do. “I wanted it to have this very focused-on-character, boots-on-the-ground feeling”, he told oscars.org. That’s smart – the sensibility meshes oh-so-sweetly with the premise, because the characters communicate economically, too. They can barely say a word for fear of being, you know, gobbled like alien popcorn.
Choice 3: the performances. If you’re stuck with characters who can’t talk much, you could do a lot worse than cast an Oscar winner with some of the most expressive eyes in the business. Who needs words? Lupita Nyong’o does so much with her face and body; going from someone literally wasting away to a person who suddenly discovers something (and someone, outside of herself) to fight for.
To kick off this piece, we quoted Sarnoski’s springboard question about Sam: “What would it mean to her if the world suddenly felt like it was also dying around her?” We’d take that a step further and ask, what would it mean to audiences to have their hero’s usual goal – survival – suddenly rendered a non-starter? In our eyes (and ears), it means we’re treated to one hell of an origin story.
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