After missing the first film on arrival and watching it at home and not catching all the fuss, then after watching the second film in the early weeks of reopening cinemas after/still during COVID (fashioning a bizarre immersive experience where everybody was trying to be as quiet and distanced as possible), it came for me to finally watch a Quiet Place film in the best circumstances. The one that ended up being the ‘chosen’ one is this new third entry helmed by Michael Sarnoski, the burgeoning auteur behind the excellent Pig from a few years back. It is somewhat with regret we see another independent voice be swallowed up by a major franchise, which this is now swiftly becoming, however this is the best case scenario – where a great director seemingly elevates the material rather than being consumed by it.
Sarnoski has managed to imbue this rather standard studio prequel fare with a very human story at its core and whether that was always the impotence for the project, I do not know, all I know is that it does give a glimpse back to the tender power of Sarnoski’s debut. The film does indeed follow not a series of stories across the first day of the alien invasion the films depict, but instead rather focuses more or less solely upon Lupita Nyong’o as a terminal cancer patient as she traverses the landscape. She eventually does meet with Jospeh Quinn however and whether it be romantic or just compassionate, the two do begin to share a bond and much of the film is spent actually in small quiet moments between the two of them. This is of course where the film is at its strongest for me, for as much as they are tense for the most part, the aliens and their rules have grown to annoy me more than excite or scare me. This they can hear, but this they can not? I mean the plot-holes and the inconsistencies in this universe have been well documented, but by this third film, yes, it has grown beyond the pail for me and looking back on the film my biggest scare was probably of Quinn’s shocking arrival into the film, never mind anything to do with an Alien. Djimon Hounsou shows up for connective tissue and is given a truly brutal and effective if brief scene that I wish the film had more of, to be honest, it offers a glimpse of true horror that for the most part the film deters from. Alex Wolf too shows up early in the film as a kind guardian and is sweet and nice for as little as he is in the film. Quinn here is very good and might be the first person in this franchise to actually just effectively depict a blithering wreck, I mean, the world has been invaded by aliens, would their not be a few more wrecks? His journey through the film however beside Nyong’o’s character feels truthful. Nyong’o herself is her typical sublime self, never once halting her immense capability for emotionality for this genre fare and forcing a very realistic depiction of living grief into the film. The film can perhaps be summated by it’s atrocious final needle drop, which I won’t spoil here. Because although the actual ending of the film is a stunningly well done action set piece punctuated by a melancholic and heartfelt conclusion, it then drops a bomb with a beyond on the nose needle drop. This is in many ways is the film all over – a series of solid set pieces punctuated with genuine emotion, always underlined by a mediocrity and a sense of the commercial, when in many ways Sarnoski has chosen to make a very uncommercial film.
A very solid 6/10 that I can’t honestly rate amongst the other two, because both of them have someone faded into distant memory and perhaps that will be the same here. Although the film is indeed very solid with excellent performances, a few great sequences and a surprising human touch, it does feel very much like a slightly lesser version of a superior product. Even though this is probably my favourite of the three and betters on the first two in many ways, it still feels like the lesser sequel of a once great franchise. Even though I don’t think this is a great franchise and this may be the best of them.
P.S. Of course tandem to Sarnoski being brought in, we have Jeff Nichols who was brought in and got very close to writing and directing this film, only to make his own way before production began. Giving us The Bike riders. And although Sarnoski does a solid job here, I would much rather have seen another film in the vein of Pig. But then again, we always say this and who knows? Maybe moving to bigger budgets and more broader action sci-fi is exactly what this director wants to do. Us small weirdo film lovers be damned.
- Thomas Carruthers
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