A Quiet Place (2018)

[biakbiak]

3 hours ago, Bastet said:

Beyond the danger he poses, what kind of life is that for him? 

Maybe I am a nihilist but I thought about that for all of them! Since it didn’t seem there was a safe place or even a place with others/a goal that could end this existence I probably would have just gotten it over and died. It didn’t really make me think that any of them had anything to live for other than not dying and that’s not compelling to me so I wasn’t invested in them surviving.

[Scarlett45]

I finally managed to see this on a flight from London home to Chicago. I really enjoyed it, and I’m not a horror girl. The suspense was real and Emily/John had good chemistry. 

[Chaos Theory]

Not much of a movie person.  I usually don’t watch them until they either show up on tv or stream.   Never even heard of this except that everyone is excited about the sequel so I decided to give it a shot.   

Couple of thoughts.  
 

1). It’s nice to know that kids will disobey their parents even in a scary monster ridden world.   
2). Dad should have really let his daughter into is secret basement huh? 
3). Mostly I liked the beginning and the end.  The middle dragged a bit.   I thought a lot of the survival mechanics where rather clever but by the half way mark I did get a little bored.   The end picked up though.  

[angora]

I'm a sign language interpreter, and I will always love this about the film: the reason the family is able to survive is because, years ago, the parents made a decision to learn their daughter's primary language and then raised their younger children bilingual. There's no way they could've communicated what needed to be done clearly and urgently enough to their kids in those early days without a non-verbal language that they all knew fluently. The little one especially - I'm sure he couldn't read well enough for his parents to have explained things to him in writing, and miming/drawing would've been too time-consuming and imprecise. This way, they could all communicate clearly, easily, and silently, and in addition to it being important to their survival, it allowed them to hang onto their insanity by being able to do normal things like chat around the dinner table. As someone who used to work in a school, I'd like to make it a requirement that all hearing parents of Deaf children watch this movie. Maybe if they won't learn sign language for the sake of being able to communicate with their own child, they'll at least learn it on the off chance that the Earth is someday overrun with blind monsters who hunt by sound.

BTW, for anyone who's wondering, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's signing was pretty good, probably the best I've seen from hearing actors who weren't already fluent. Blunt in particular did a really nice job - her movements weren't too choppy, and she was very expressive. (Better than Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water by a mile!)

[Scarlett45]

12 hours ago, angora said:

I'm a sign language interpreter, and I will always love this about the film: the reason the family is able to survive is because, years ago, the parents made a decision to learn their daughter's primary language and then raised their younger children bilingual. There's no way they could've communicated what needed to be done clearly and urgently enough to their kids in those early days without a non-verbal language that they all knew fluently. The little one especially - I'm sure he couldn't read well enough for his parents to have explained things to him in writing, and miming/drawing would've been too time-consuming and imprecise. This way, they could all communicate clearly, easily, and silently, and in addition to it being important to their survival, it allowed them to hang onto their insanity by being able to do normal things like chat around the dinner table. As someone who used to work in a school, I'd like to make it a requirement that all hearing parents of Deaf children watch this movie. Maybe if they won't learn sign language for the sake of being able to communicate with their own child, they'll at least learn it on the off chance that the Earth is someday overrun with blind monsters who hunt by sound.

BTW, for anyone who's wondering, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's signing was pretty good, probably the best I've seen from hearing actors who weren't already fluent. Blunt in particular did a really nice job - her movements weren't too choppy, and she was very expressive. (Better than Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water by a mile!)

Thank you for your posts. I know a little bit about Deaf culture, and many years ago I was appalled to learned so many Deaf children grow up in hearing families where the hearing people don’t sign!!! In my ignorance I assumed that if one had a Deaf child it was priority #1 for all people living in the household to be fluent in sign ASAP. 
 

I too thought Emily and John did a pretty good job, and it’s nice to see Deaf actors get work, rather than having hearing people play deaf characters. 

[Anela]

10 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

Thank you for your posts. I know a little bit about Deaf culture, and many years ago I was appalled to learned so many Deaf children grow up in hearing families where the hearing people don’t sign!!! In my ignorance I assumed that if one had a Deaf child it was priority #1 for all people living in the household to be fluent in sign ASAP. 
 

I too thought Emily and John did a pretty good job, and it’s nice to see Deaf actors get work, rather than having hearing people play deaf characters. 

I have a good online friend, who is going deaf. She's lost most of her hearing, and a few months ago, was sad, because her husband had said that he didn't want to learn sign language. I hope he's changed his mind since then. 

[paramitch]

I loved this, and finally have a moment to chime in. Although I agree that it's best as a visceral experience; some logistical fallacies occur if you analyze deeply (and justifiably so). But oh, the performances and direction!

On 4/5/2018 at 3:18 PM, AimingforYoko said:

That's some Deadpool-level marketing, right there.

Loved it.

On 4/7/2018 at 2:59 PM, raven said:

You don't really need to know the whys and hows though -the family is isolated and had already been communicating via sign language.  They were also smart and resilient.  You can question the mom being pregnant in these circumstances but at least they built a quiet room for when the baby's born, which did work until it got flooded.

You pinpoint my biggest issue, the pregnancy, but I also can see how -- if they continued to survive in this horrible scenario -- how they could begin to relax oddly, to think, "every baby is a signifier of hope."

On 4/8/2018 at 12:00 PM, CofCinci said:

Also, the signing of “I love you” was sooo cheezy but JK sold the moment and I came close to tears. 

To each their own. It killed me so hard. I burst out sobbing and was a total mess.

On 4/9/2018 at 6:51 AM, afterbite said:

I had to handwave that away, because yeah. How did they use the bathroom? An outhouse, I guess, since flushing would have gotten you eaten. Then again, what if you accidentally let one rip in the outhouse? Is it light's out for you?

Other questions I had: Where did they get all the sand to line the walkways? Why was the corn still planted in rows more than a year after all of this went down? How did they have access to oxygen tanks but not condoms? Why was there still electricity? Why didn't she do the washing at the river?

This is all terrific and totally fair game. I would argue that, perhaps, biological sounds like, er, peeing/pooping, might have been accepted to the list of "natural biological sounds" to the aliens. And crops will keep growing the way they're presented, with the added undergrowth of weeds, etc. And some modern amenities/utilities are supposedly built to keep on going even after a potential nuclear apocalypse, so...?

But when I watched the movie, to be fair, I just went with it. And that really impressed me on multiple levels.

On 4/9/2018 at 4:22 PM, Shannon L. said:

However, I said to my son after we left that there's no way, no how I'd have a baby in that situation.  I'd have gone into ever store I passed to look for condoms and birth control pills.  Hell, I'd have even resorted to getting all the  plastic wrap I could find, counted my days meticulously and still made sure he pulled out (sorry to get so graphic, but sheesh).  I know, I know....it made for some incredibly intense moments, but it was still the one thing that was the hardest for me to wave off. 

Me too. Me me too. I was actually subliminally angry at them for having another baby. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, what's wrong with them? But that scene was also one of the best scenes I've seen on film in recent years, so... sigh. If they are stupid enough to have another kid, I will wish them well. 

On 4/9/2018 at 4:42 PM, raven said:

One little thing I noticed in the beginning, when they were looking for the medicine, was all the packages of chips and stuff still there.  Noisy bags!  I thought that was a nice touch.

I liked that it made us aware -- in a big picture way -- of sound in our daily lives. 

On 4/14/2018 at 9:34 PM, Anela said:

Some kid posted a spoiler in the chat of something I was watching last week, so I knew the dad was a goner. I was hoping it wasn't true, though. And the kid getting snatched at the beginning! I was trying to be quiet, because I'd heard that theatres were really quiet when this was playing, but I let out an, "Oh, fuck!" when that poor little boy was grabbed.  

I'm so glad I wasn't spoiled. It would have ruined everything for me. I knew nothing when I watched, thank the gods.

On 4/15/2018 at 5:44 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Real life married couples acting together can be hit or miss, but I thought John Krasinski and Emily Blunt had great chemistry here and worked well together.  They were great in their separate moments and arcs too, although I do think Blunt is better overall (or at least has more range), but I suspect even Krasinski would be the first to admit that.  But they both fit their characters very well.  Really impressed by Noah Jupe and especially Millicent Simmonds as the kids.  I think both of them have bright futures ahead of them, or they should.  You can never tell in this industry, sadly.

Definitely curious to see where Krasinski goes as a director and writers.  Definitely impressed me here.

I loved both. I adore Blunt, who is amazing, but she's also been given ample opportunity to demonstrate her versatility (to me "Into the Woods" was my capitulation into OMG I LOVE HER). I get that Krasinski is a pop culture icon from "The Office" (which I hated because despite its being well-done it was so damn depressing, but I made it through S5 solely for his character). So it was great to see him stretch himself -- as an actor, but also as a writer and director. He deserves all the kudos here, because he broke my damn heart. 

And Millicent Simmonds was amazing, and I can't wait to see what she does next. 

Quote

@angora, BTW, for anyone who's wondering, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's signing was pretty good, probably the best I've seen from hearing actors who weren't already fluent. Blunt in particular did a really nice job - her movements weren't too choppy, and she was very expressive. (Better than Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water by a mile!)

I thought so too! So I love this confirmation. I have cerebral palsy, and am hard of hearing in one ear, so my Mom raised me with a basis in the fingerspelled alphabet and some AMSLAN, although I am rusty on it now. My favorite thing is that it reminded me of how communication and language can also be artful. And I say this (shamefacedly) as a writer. But it did.

Edited January 21, 2020 by paramitch
edited to fix comment about the office