Hang on, A Quiet Place: Day One is the origin story, about how Earth is invaded by creatures who track humans using sound alone? Wasn’t that already covered in A Quiet Place Part II?
Indeed it was, but if you are generous of spirit and reject the idea that A Quiet Place: Day One is just a reheat of old hash, you’ll be pointing out right now that A Quiet Place Part II did the whole “how the apocalypse arrived” thing in its first ten minutes, then zipped forwards in time about a year and a half to catch up with the Abbott family (Emily Blunt, John Krasinski and co) as they came to terms with living a silent life in order to avoid being eaten by aliens who could hear but not see.
No Blunt, Krasinski and co this time out. Instead there’s Lupita Nyong’o, playing a poet with terminal cancer who is not taking well to the whole facing-death-courageously thing but finds that life (or, should that be death?) takes on a whole new aspect once the aliens arrive.
It’s largely a two-hander, Nyong’o’s pissy Samira trekking across New York back to her neighbourhood in Harlem so she can taste, perhaps for the last time, the pizza served up at her local pizzeria, if it’s still open, which seems unlikely, considering that most of the city is in ruins.
Along for the journey an accidental acquisition in the shape of Eric (Joseph Quinn), an Englishman in New York clinging on to Sam as the only fixed point in a world that’s suddenly become highly uncertain. Plus, big aaah, Samira’s cute black-and-white cat, which gets the occasional Alien-style plot moment of its own.
It’s a love story, of sorts, a redemptive tale, partly, a quest movie, on a small scale, all these things balled up together and served between encounters with the creatures, who are caught mostly in glimpses looming out of the smoke and dust.
Michael Sarnoski takes over directing from Krasinski, and has said that his intention was to load up on the Children of Men vibe. Mission accomplished – this is a dark, chaotic and pitiless journey in an apocalyptic world where the end of days looms large and people for the most part are seen as a mass of humanity. See also The Last of Us, for an indication of where this is all coming come.
It’s also a surprisingly gentle film, lyrical at times. Considering that it’s about mass death and epic levels of destruction you’d almost say it was nice.
Sarnoski did Pig, a revenge movie starring Nicolas Cage which approached the genre from a new direction, and he’s clearly aiming to take the alien-apocalypse movie for a spin into new territory as well. And mostly manages it, though the rewards are less obvious. There isn’t much here if you’re hoping to be scared to death.
Both Nyong’o and Quinn are very good, and at times resort to silent-movie acting, all facial gestures and telegraphed hand signals, reminders of an era long gone. There is barely a word spoken for huge chunks of the running time, and while Nyong’o’s expressive features can handle this with ease, the surprise is that Quinn is just as adept. I see he’s the IMDb’s “most popular star of the year”. Not sure who was involved in the voting. He played Emperor Getta in Gladiator II, was that what did it? Not arguing against the result, just wondering aloud…
If you know London you’ll be able to spot that the bits of it that weren’t shot at Leavesden Studios (home of Harry Potter) were filmed in Docklands, which fill in quite well for Manhattan. And if you’re a terminal cancer patient who’s living in a hospice, you’ll probably wonder just how in hell Samira is doing what she does. Must be the powerful analgesic properties of the promise of pizza.
A Quiet Place: Day One – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
