A Quiet Place.

Hello everyone and welcome back to #moviemonday. 

I’m continuing to embrace spooky season so today’s movie discussion is all about A Quiet Place. 

Let’s dive into Movie Monday. 

A Quiet Place was released in 2018 and the movie was directed by John Krasinski. 

Plot. 

I’m going to start off by saying that I find the premise of this movie really interesting. The movie follows a family who must survive in a world where they cannot make any noise. The movie is set in a post-apocalyptic world where monsters lurk. These monsters have an extremely keen sense of hearing so if you make any noise, they will find you. 

Characters. 

The only characters in the movie are Lee and Evelyn Abbott and their children, Reagan, who is deaf, Marcus, and Beau. Evelyn is also pregnant with their fourth child. The family are the movie’s protagonists and the terrifying creatures they must hide from are the movie’s antagonists. 

The creatures react to the slightest noise, and as usual there will be no spoilers here, but even the smallest of noises can have very dangerous, even fatal consequences. 

Evelyn and Lee are concerned parents, preoccupied with keeping their children safe in this dangerous world. Lee and Evelyn are sacrificing parents, they do everything in their power to protect their children. The children must also grow up in a world where they can make no noise, which is a very unnatural thing to do. The movie also gives audiences an insight into what life may be like for someone who is deaf, as the character Reagan is deaf and she was played by a deaf actress. Her character cannot hear anything that is going on and she cannot hear the noises that attract the monsters, so the only indicator of danger Reagan has are the reactions of the people around her. When she sees their terrified expressions, she knows she is in danger. 

Themes. 

A major theme of this movie is a parent’s love for their child. This unconditional, undying love is what motivates Lee and Evelyn to keep going, to fight, to stay safe. They will do anything for their children. 

This movie has been the topic of many conversations, and many people have expressed different opinions about what they interpret the movie to mean. Director John Krasinski stated that to him, the movie is preoccupied with parenthood. 

I think that the idea of a parent fearing for their child’s safety, and worrying about whether or not they will be able to keep their children safe from danger is a common theme in many movies however since this is a horror movie, the danger comes in the form of literal monsters but I think that the monsters can be argued to be a metaphor for real life dangers that exist in our world. It doesn’t matter how careful we are, unfortunately there will most likely always be some kind of danger lurking, and sometimes parents cannot protect their children from those dangers no matter how hard they try. 

I would argue that another major theme of this movie is the power of fear. Fear is what drives these characters to live their lives the way they do. Fear of harm coming to their children is what keeps Lee going, he is determined to discover the creature’s weakness as knowing this would give him a better chance of beating the creature, which would in turn give his family a better chance of survival. There is a theme of doing what needs to be done that runs through this movie, and so I would say that this is a movie about fear and survival – and these themes of fear and survival are presented through a family unit. 

Structure. 

This movie operates within a three act structure, and I think it is very impressive how this movie gradually builds tension with very little spoken dialogue. The characters communicate using sign language, and they can only talk very carefully under certain circumstances so the movie is almost a totally silent movie. 

I think that because noise attracts the monsters, one of the scariest parts of this movie is the silent tension. Audiences are hoping that the characters, especially the children, do stay quiet because if they don’t, the monster will appear. 

This is a movie that really focuses on sound, and on a lack of sound. This movie does a lot of showing not telling, and audiences pick up on what is happening based on facial expressions, and character reactions. 

The three act narrative is usually made up of three sections, the beginning which is sometimes called the setup, the middle which is sometimes called the confrontation, and the end which is sometimes called the resolution. 

The second act, so the middle of the movie where the confrontation is occurring, is usually the most action packed part of the movie, it is where most of the plot occurs and since A Quiet Place operates within this three act structure, I would say that the body of this story happens in act two.

I think this is a really simple plot that contains arguably complex themes. The story however is extremely straight forward, the setup is immediate – straight away audiences know the stakes, the family cannot make noise because they’ll be in extreme danger if they do. Audiences know that something bad is going to happen at some point and the tension arises from waiting for that bad thing to occur. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. The pacing is easy to follow, the tension builds gradually, and we get a fast paced, high stakes ending. 

Final Thoughts. 

I mentioned last week that I don’t love horror movies because I’m squeamish, but there are some that I really enjoy despite horror definitely not being my favourite genre. A Quiet Place is one of those movies. I enjoy this movie because I enjoy the premise, and I think the fact that this movie is scary mostly because it makes audiences sit in a tense silence is very impressive. It is a creative story that builds fear in a unique way. I also enjoy the movie because of it’s simplicity. The plot is really straight forward and yet the movie has sparked many conversations and it was massively popular. Overall I’m very glad that I decided to watch this movie, and I would watch it again. 

This has been Movie Monday. I hope you enjoyed it. Have you seen A Quiet Place? 

Kate xo.