Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds, Leon Russom, Cade Woodward, Doris McCarthy.
We make too much noise, the world is permanently awake through the need to be heard, to have our ideas, our wishes and dreams explored and sung from the highest possible place and to have it echo through other’s ears. We are getting louder, as a species we are dominant in the sound that we create and soon even that quiet place of contemplation we seek, is not going to be a haven of tranquillity, it is going to be a prison in which we realise we have squandered a great gift.
It is in A Quiet Place that the tense and psychological take your hand and ask you to dance with it, no orchestra, barely a whisper heard but the full meaning completely, utterly and devastatingly explored. A moment on screen that is incredible and original, one that captures all that horror is meant to be and one that requires nothing more than the viewer’s full attention and heart beat to quicken.
It is always difficult to praise the child actor, one must do one’s best to avoid making comparisons as they have not had the time to fulfil their own path, to find which strand on the road they have the capacity to follow; yet in both Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, the film is given absolute style and one fitting their adult co-stars determination to see it be reckoned with as a film of the highest quality.
It is heartening to see a film make the use of sign language also, a revelation of the inclusive way that the horror genre can teach others in how to make a story so much interesting without ever being condescending to the interested cinema goer.
You might see a finer film than A Quiet Place in 2018, you possibly could stumble upon a the lost Ark whilst your search hopefully through the dust and the near perfect relics, through the gold and the lacklustre. However, what Emily Blunt, John Krasinski and the rest of the cast have produced is astonishing, as magnificently terrifying as the grandmother of the genre Alien was in its day and continues to be. As well written and acted as any horror or even love film could have been; if you find a better film, then cherish it forever, because in this unpretentious, in this sit on the edge of your seat film, you can only understand that such cinematic experiences come around so rarely, that if you witness it, you have seen greatness in action.
We all search for that quiet place in which our thoughts speak louder than our incessant need to be heard, perhaps we don’t look hard enough; in A Quiet Place we should all take heed.
Ian D. Hall