Hollywood has this habit now that rarely pays off. Some young/new/hungry filmmaker makes a gorgeous independent feature or two on a small to medium budget, Hollywood notices and hires them to make a $100-million blockbuster that, more likely than not, tamps down their directorial style and attaches their sensibilities to filmmaking-by-committee, thus losing whatever spark made them special to begin with.
Look at filmmakers including Chloé Zhao ("Nomadland" into "Eternals"), Colin Trevorrow ("Safety Not Guaranteed" into "Jurassic World"), Marc Webb ("500 Days of Summer" into "Amazing Spider-Man") and Catherine Hardwicke ("Lords of Dogtown" to "Twilight") whose personalities as artists were almost invisible on those larger projects. Still, there are filmmakers such as James Gunn, Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler whose sensibilities survive the jump, but they're the exception and not the rule.
All of that is to say I was pretty nervous about "A Quiet Place: Day One" from filmmaker Michael Sarnoski. His directorial debut, "Pig," was my favorite film of 2021 and the most deeply humane and beautiful performance I've ever seen from the Batshit Maestro Nic Cage. Sarnoski took the story of a broken man living in the forests of Oregon who goes on a hunt through the dark culinary back alleys of Portland looking for his stolen truffle pig.
On the surface (and with Cage's casting), this sounds like an absurdist riff on "John Wick" that would allow Cage to go bug-eyed, violent and screaming all over some bad guys. Instead, "Pig" is a quiet and introspective character study on grief, love and devotion and spends its entire runtime subverting our expectations and almost becoming an anti-action movie so deeply rooted in the human condition that it feels like an elegiac poem written for man and womankind.
Somehow, not only has Sarnoski managed to bring that introspection to a blockbuster horror franchise, but he has made what is easily the best in the series. John Krasinski's "A Quiet Place" and its sequel are both fine examples of what thoughtful and well-crafted storytelling can bring to the high concept horror genre, but they both still prioritize plot and jump scares over characters.
"A Quiet Place: Day One" is a prequel to the other two films, set the day the aliens land on Earth. Whereas the first movies follow a family living on an isolated farm in Upstate New York, we're in Manhattan for this one, following the always-brilliant Lupita Nyong'o as Sam, a sick young woman who is in the city to see a play with the rest of her hospice-mates. Sam is dying of cancer and doesn't have long to live, so when the aliens land, her priorities are different from everyone else's. Along with her cat Frodo and a deeply terrified law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn), she goes on an exodus from Manhattan to Harlem to get what she thinks might be the last slice of pizza ever from her favorite spot she went to as a kid.
If you've seen the other films, you know that the creatures are sightless and have super acute hearing, so the film relies mostly on Nyong'o's deeply expressive face and eyes that convey limitless emotions in just the briefest of glances. Sarnoski's delicate dance between handheld cameras and long tracking shots, the textures and nuanced sound design from Kate Bilinski, the much-improved creature design and the work of Nyong'o, Quinn and Frodo make this movie one I'm already excited to catch again on the biggest screen possible.
"A Quiet Place: Day One" could have easily been a cynical cash grab, but instead is an intense and creepy chiller that not only has a few great scares throughout, but also crafts a beautiful story of friendship and humanity set at the end of the world. Sarnoski is truly one hell of a filmmaker to watch as he brings such an assured grace to the movie that is truly breathtaking in places.
This will disappoint some, as we still have no answers as to where the creatures came from or what their ultimate purpose is (I'm sure we'll get those answers when we get "A Quiet Place: Part Three" in 2025), but that's not the point of this movie. Telling human stories across a massive canvas like the end of the world is one of the reasons why genre cinema exists. I would much rather have Sam and Frodo silently crossing a deadly wasteland of vicious and blind monsters than some random-ass exposition about why the aliens are blind and all murder-y.
"A Quiet Place: Day One" is great genre cinema and Michael Sarnoski is a hell of a filmmaker. A decade from now I wouldn't be surprised if he's one of our best and making whatever the hell he wants to make. He avoided the pitfalls of blockbuster filmmaking so far and I don't see him compromising his vision any time soon. Lucky for us.
