A Quiet Place: Day One [Review]
A movie about the quietest cat that ever lived, from the director of Pig.
A Quiet Place: Day One. Credit: Gareth Gatrell / Paramount Pictures
A Quiet Place: Day One is the third film in the Quiet Place franchise and a prequel to the other two films. This time, the film is written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, who directed my favorite movie of 2021, Pig, rather than original series director John Krasinski. A studio tentpole like this is certainly a step up in budget and scale for Sarnoski, and he acquits himself well, juggling tense action with delicate moments of character and drama.
The film follows Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a poet and terminally ill woman in constant pain. Lured onto a field trip into the city for a show by hospice nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff) with the promise of pizza. Not charmed by the show, she steps outside. It’s at this moment that the meteors that carry Death Angels, the monstrous alien antagonists of the franchise, begin to land in New York City.
Samira then sets off on the most dangerous trip ever undertaken to get a slice of pizza, aided by young British law student Eric (Joseph Quinn) and her service cat, Frodo.
A Quiet Place: Day One. Credit: Gareth Gatrell / Paramount Pictures
I appreciate that rather than retreading the same ground, Day One does something a little different—it shows us the effect of the invasion on a densely populated, large city, painting on a larger canvas. We get to see the chaos and confusion of the immediate aftermath as well as the beginnings of people learning to adapt.
Despite the scale, the film feels intimate in its focus on Samira and Eric. The film owes a lot to Nyong’o and Quinn, and Sarnoski seems more confident directing these actors and developing their characters than with the film’s action. I appreciated that the horror and suspense sequences in the movie also directly serve revealing or developing characters.
The best performances in the film comes from Schnitzel and Nico, playing Frodo the cat. Frodo directly motivates some of the action in the film and serves to bond the other protagonists, being the third corner of the movie’s love triangle. Frodo is also the quietest cat in existence, never meowing in the film, even when he hadn’t been fed. I thought there would be more tension in the film from Samira needing to worry about Frodo as a liability, but he’s a character in his own right rather than a plot device, and in the end it works. You’ll find yourself rooting for the cat.
I wasn’t expecting much from this film and I got something better than Part II, so I can’t really complain. Day One never drags because there isn’t much fat in its 99 minute running time and because of the strength of its characters. It’s no Pig, but then again, can anything else ever be? I hope Frodo appears in a sequel.
A Quiet Place: Day One is in theaters now.
