Film review: A Quiet Place: Day One — a bold, innovative, heart-in-throat chiller

Joseph Quinn and Lupita Nyong'o in a scene from A Quiet Place: Day One. Photo / AP

Silence is still golden in Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn’s alien invasion prequel — but make sure you see it with an audience.

Far too many blockbusters these days get bogged down in exposition, so there is something to be said for a big summer film whose entire premise can be captured by a terrified man grabbing its heroine by the shoulders and saying “shhh”.

Said moment occurs roughly 15 minutes into A Quiet Place: Day One — although for those familiar with the franchise, even this is probably surplus to requirements. As in the 2018 and 2020 instalments, blind aliens with pin-sharp hearing and pincers are ravaging Earth, making steak tartare of any human who emits a sound. The first two chapters centred on a young family, led by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, surviving in the wilderness — but this third wipes the slate, and in doing so offers a radical new treatment of the series’ strong but arguably played-out concept.

Following a brief scene-setting prologue, there are perhaps two further scenes in the entire film in which dialogue plays a meaningful role.

Lupita Nyong'o in a scene from A Quiet Place: Day One. Photo / AP

Beyond that, all communication comes in the form of pointing, anxious and/or petrified looks, and the odd note, hastily scribbled. And of course that expository shhh too, delivered by Djimon Hounsou, whom we briefly catch en route to the events of A Quiet Place: Part II.

The new setting is New York, where Lupita Nyong’o’s Sam and Joseph Quinn’s Eric, a poet/cancer patient and law student respectively, get caught up in the initial chaos and carnage when the aliens arrive. So, too, does Sam’s pet cat Frodo, who has a larger and more complex role than any other human in the film. Fortunately, it’s not a big miaower.

Djimon Hounsou in a scene from A Quiet Place: Day One. Photo / AP

This trio do their best to survive from moment to moment in the wreckage of Manhattan: that’s all there is for them to do, and all the film cares about anyway. A Quiet Place: Day One was written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, of 2021′s excellent Nicolas Cage truffle-hunting thriller Pig, and it feels like the best possible result of a conversation that began “if we’re really going to do another of these, we’d better make it worthwhile”.

And they did. The film is about as bold and innovative as a third franchise entry can be, which may not be desperately, but is more than enough to keep viewers’ hearts at constant throat altitude.

Structurally, it feels less like a film than a great video game, with a setting that slowly evolves from scene to scene (or perhaps level to level) and a constant, itchily compelling sense of progress being made. Nyong’o is above and beyond outstanding here — as previously seen in Jordan Peele’s Us, expressions of gut-wrenching terror are a forte. But British rising star Quinn holds his own impressively, and a late scene between the two in a deserted bar is so touchingly and delicately played, you almost forget the man-eating aliens scuttling around outside.

As before, the act of watching with an audience is part of the fun, with each pin-drop-silent sequence playing as a challenge to viewers to maintain their collective hush at all costs. This is the pleasant surprise of the summer so far. See it. Don’t bring crisps.