A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE
(director/writer: Michael Sarnoski; screenwriters: story by Sarnosky & John Krasinski, characters by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods; cinematographer: Pat Scola; editors: Gregory Plotkin, Andrew Mondshein; music: Alexsis Grapsas; cast: Lupita Nyong’o (Samira), Alex Wolff (Reuben, nurse), Joseph Quinn (Eric), Djimon Hounsou (Henri), Jennifer Woodward (Nurse), Elijah Ungvary (Frightened Man); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, John Krasinski; Paramount Pictures; 2024-USA/UK)
“Has nothing fresh to say.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Michael Sarnoski (“Pig”/”The Death of Robin Hood”) stylishly directs and slickly writes the third film in the franchise, a prequel and follow-up to the 2018 film. It’s a slight sci-fi/horror pic about an unexplained alien invasion in NYC, and is based on a story the director wrote with John Krasinski.
The surly Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) is a poet undergoing treatment for advanced cancer at a suburban New Jersey hospice center. With her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff) and several other patients, she attends a theater marionette show in NYC’s Chinatown, when unexpectedly the city is confronted by a deadly alien attack. She leaves her group and goes uptown to get a pizza at Patsy’s celebrated Italian restaurant in East Harlem.
The frightened Brit law student, Eric (Joseph Quinn), she runs into in midtown, is afraid to be left alone and winds up going with Samira and her quiet therapy cat to Patsy’s.
They talk in whispers because the blind aliens move quickly and can hear everything with their super powers of hearing, and the best way of not being attacked is to remain silent.
“Day One” is an efficiently blended together horror story with a human one. The strong performance by Nyong’o and her survivalist relationship with Eric, keep things suspenseful even if it’s a film with hardly any dialogue, has nothing fresh to say and most of the city sights look artificial (it was filmed in London).
REVIEWED ON 7/1/2024 GRADE: B-
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