A Quiet Place: Day One (Sarnoski, 2024)

Written by Tom Augustine.

The best piece of criticism I read about John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place was Katherine Fusco’s ‘DIY Whiteness in the Age of Apocalypse’, which picks apart the quiet conservatism of the film’s Instagram-ready survivalist kitsch. While it’s entirely possible to watch Krasinski’s film as a simple, enjoyable exercise in tension-based filmmaking, the sly undercurrent of a ‘traditional family values’ ideology, seen in elements of the film like the barefoot, pregnant mother (Emily Blunt) giving birth in silence; the stoic, sacrificial father figure (Krasinski himself); and the picturesque homestead threatened by inhuman invaders, becomes one of those things you can’t unsee once you’re aware of it. It’s not a reading Krasinski supports, but the actor/director has kept noticeably quiet about the truth of his politics, but there’s a certain idealised traditionalism to the A Quiet Place films Krasinski made that feels purposeful. For the third instalment of the franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One, which functions as a prequel to those earlier films, Krasinski has passed to reigns to Michael Sarnoski, director of one of the most promising independent American debuts of the past few years, Pig. That film revealed a director that shared a rooted interest in notions of Americana, but his conclusions are noticeably different to the work we’ve seen from Krasinski – he’s far more critical of the nation’s myths, and more open to the messier elements of the country’s persona. Both filmmakers are entirely American, and make American films, but Sarnoski’s inheritance of the franchise has allowed for tweaks to what this franchise has the ability to say, for the better.

For one thing, the action of Day One relocates from a rural space to an urban one – New York City, couching this new effort in the panoply of great disaster films that have taken place there. In the process, we get a feel for just how much Sarnoski loves the city, a feeling I share and by which I was moved, amongst the monsters and jump scares. Lupita Nyong’o, one of the great actors of her generation, stars as Sammy, a woman trapped in the middle of a sudden and brutal alien invasion that claims the lives of anyone who makes a sound above the barest whisper. Along the way, she links up with various other survivors, including Djimon Honsou as a doting, grim-faced father, and Joseph Quinn (of recent Stranger Things fame) as Eric, a British expat alone in the giant expanse of the city. In tow is also Sammy’s support animal, a remarkably durable cat named Frodo. Nyong’o, Quinn and Frodo form the core of the story, and the blossoming, tender union they form is a tribute to the quality of both actors – Nyong’o, a terminally underrated performer who is never less than blisteringly authentic, and Quinn, who shone through the neon-coated silliness of Stranger Things with sheer force of charisma. Indeed, the emotional investment that is fostered by these two (three, if we’re counting the cat, which we should) performances is clearly the thing Sarnoski is most dedicated to, lending A Quiet Place: Day One a descriptor I never thought it’d have the capacity to bear: gentleness.

Inheriting the post-apocalyptic horror franchise from John Krasinski, Pig director Michael Sarnoski finds nuance, pathos and poeticism in this third instalment that’s far stronger than it has any right to be. Using the series as a space to explore the director’s own fascinations, it’s a quietly humanistic work greatly benefited by the two muscular performances at its centre. 

This will surely be something of a disappointment for those expecting more fireworks and nerve-shredding setpieces of the sort earlier films in the franchise have offered up, and which the setting and insistence of a prequel seemed to underline in the promotion of Day One. Sarnoski’s film functions foremost as a drama, located in the massive playground of the film series’ post-apocalyptic conceit. Only occasionally does Day One remind itself that it needs to include some monster scares and action, to the point where I momentarily doubted there was going to be a third act climax at all. There is, but such scenes are handled with a general, workmanlike procedurality, save for the blistering arrival sequence near the beginning of the film. For the most part, I found this muted approach kind of refreshing. Sarnoski is intimately concerned with these two characters – brittle, nihilistic Sammy and sweet, fragile Eric – and what they have to teach each other. Anyone who has seen Pig will recognise the wistful, rough-hewn hopefulness the sequences these two share evoke. There’s a major aspect to the relationship of the two characters that I won’t reveal here, because not knowing going in added a layer of melancholy to the film that was unmistakable, and is handled with absolute grace by Sarnoski. Suffice to say that death surrounds the film like the terrible white dust Sammy is coated in upon first impact with the monsters (who, here, feel far scarier than ever before, particularly in chilling wide shots of the city overrun with these swift, buglike monstrosities), and Sarnoski uses the intriguing setup of A Quiet Place to pose an insistent question in these modern times of upheaval – how does one trudge on in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds? 

Along the way, the quiet attentiveness that Sarnoski brought to Pig reveals itself in how lovingly the director captures the city. ‘I had forgotten how the city sounds’, Sammy sighs near the end of the film in a patch of silence, and it is deeply moving to see the director’s gaze drift amongst the chaos to the metallic skyscrapers, the old bars and pizza joints, the fire escapes, the subway tunnels, and all the other things that make the Big Apple so special. Certain films feel like key touchstones – Spielberg’s downbeat sci-fi masterpiece War of the Worlds, undoubtedly; but also, compellingly, the set of films we now think of as the post-9/11 canon. These films, with their grey, downcast visages and thrumming undercurrents of humanity, briefly defined every aspect of American film, and bore many jewels – 25th Hour, Margaret, Spider-man 2, Cloverfield. It’s incredibly difficult not to picture the rubble and waste of that historic day in any modern New York disaster film, and the same can be said of Day One, nearly twenty-five years since the attacks occurred. Perhaps I responded to Day One so deeply because I’m a city boy at heart, and the resilience of New York City provides such a palpable heartbeat to any effort, even the third instalment of a ho-hum horror/sci-fi franchise. Then again, maybe it was just that really excellent cat.

A Quiet Place: Day One is in cinemas now.

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