Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) is on a day trip to New York City when invading aliens crash land on Earth. She and fellow survivor Eric (Joseph Quinn) attempt to navigate the silent new world.
Aside from its interesting premise that doesn’t make anyone make a sound (Watch that nail! Stay out of the grain silo! You’re really giving birth in that bathtub?!), it’s easy to forget: A Quiet Place was so effective because it made it real that you care With the Abbott family. Since John Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s grieving parents were the beating heart of the original, the spin-off A Quiet Place: Day One — a callback to humanity’s first contact with audibly augmented aliens — has big gaps to fill, not just surpass this evocative post – Setting up the collapse of the first film and 2021’s sequel, but also avoiding the Abbott clan.
Into this void, writer-director Michael Sarnoski — who was previously behind Pig, taking over the reins from Krasinski — introduces a new pair of heroes who you’ll connect with deeply over the course of a terrible, terrible, no good, very bad day in New York City. It’s a bewildering setting for A Quiet Place — as the opening text tells us, the daily noise of the Big Apple evokes “the volume of constant screaming.” Lupita Nyong’o was perfectly cast to play the central character, Sam; Jordan Peele’s “Us” proved that her broad outlook was tailor-made for horror. We learn right away that Sam is terminally ill with cancer—a development that provides real thematic meat to chew on. As such, Day One is about how to confront the end of your life and, in a way, to confront the end of the world itself.
An intimate personal drama that also happens to be A Quiet Place.
As she counts her days, Sam’s motivations differ distinctly from the usual survival movie fare — and her journey across town leads her to Eric (whose Stranger Things 4 appearance is Joseph Quinn), a similarly Brit lost in the urban apocalypse. Quinn exudes an endearingly wistful energy without becoming moody; The developing chemistry between Eric and Sam runs deep. The best scene in the film is the couple reading poetry, waiting for the thunder to boom so they can scream their pain to the sky. In another life, these two might have enjoyed a relationship before sunrise. The fact that they never will is becoming increasingly disturbing.
Less engaging are the alien attack sequences: although solidly built and still tense, the Quiet Place formula – run quiet, quiet and noise! – He feels increasingly occupied. Although New York City makes for a great apocalypse playground (the initial attack is reminiscent of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds), the scenes don’t offer much new.
But for all its familiarity (the crucial “part three” should really be the ending), Sam and Eric’s story is unexpectedly poignant. In Sarnosky’s hands, The First Day becomes an intimate personal drama that also happens to be a movie about A Quiet Place — further proof that, in this cinematic world, the only part of the body more vital than the ears is the heart.
A Quiet Place’s strong entry is elevated by poignant performances from Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn – a surprisingly gentle tale of the end of days.
