IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched in the cinema (99th visit in 2024)
You will hate "A Quiet Place: Day One", there's no doubt about it. If you wanted to know what happens to the world overrun by noise-sensitive aliens after the end of "A Quiet Place 2", this prequel will seem like an unnecessary burden, like leftovers that were forgotten to be disposed of. A harsh but fair judgment: steer clear of this prequel if "A Quiet Place" means family drama fused with sci-fi horror to you. However, if you're not particularly interested in the story begun in the previous films, you should definitely give it a look. Michael Sarnoski's second feature film has its flaws, but is the best part of the series overall!
There are several reasons for this. Technically, the prequel doesn't show any weaknesses. Even if the CGI background is recognizable here and there, the film looks and sounds very good overall. An even bigger point, however, is the starting point of the main character, played by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o. We don't get to know her Samira in an everyday situation.
Samira is terminally ill, lives in a hospice just outside New York and goes into the city with her nurse (Alex Wolff) to see a show and eat pizza. However, the attack by the alien invaders quickly turns the trip into a fight for survival. A fight for survival that draws clear visual parallels to 9/11. When silence and dust cover the streets after the first attack, director Sarnoski and his cameraman find extremely memorable images that are both eerie and beautiful.
The makers manage to create an effective balance. Again and again, it is primarily about humanity, but also about loneliness. When Samira, who is not really interested in leaving isolated Manhattan due to her own death sentence, moves in the opposite direction to the other survivors, it is not only a powerful image, but also one that tells us much more about her intentions than classic exposition. Although this is dutifully added, it would have been largely unnecessary - as are other aspects of the prequel.
First and foremost: "Day One" repeatedly inserts elements that ultimately only serve to establish a direct link to John Krasinski's first two films. The character of Djimon Hounsou, who was part of the cast in the second part and whose role in the prequel is not completely useless, but rather dispensable, is particularly striking.
It's a similar story with a scene in which Joseph Quinn observes the aliens doing something that is not further explained, in a setting whose lighting alone makes a big city construction site look like an alien, unreal planet. This is certainly a nice touch, but it feels like a forced appendage so that nobody can complain that the prequel doesn't expand on the already familiar world.
But that wouldn't have been necessary. The strong thing about "A Quiet Place: Day One" is the humanity of the story. It's not about the human beast, but about characters who support each other in an emergency. That's why the comparison with 9/11 makes perfect sense - even if the movie is kind enough to constantly point the finger at it. The fact that the bringing together of Samira and Eric seems almost coincidental - with a lot of love you could even call it a fairytale - is fine. Both characters are lost in their own way. It almost seems as if they are attracted to each other like magnets.
So the prequel is basically not about how the aliens massacred humanity, but rather about a journey, an adventure, a battle of the lonely. It's not complex, and it doesn't have to be. Especially not when, despite its simplicity, it is so movingly directed by Michael Sarnoski.
There were rumors beforehand that he was only working as a director for hire. However, anyone who has seen his beautiful Pig will find a lot of things echoed in Day One: From the importance of an animal (the cat!) to the depressed mood and the confrontation with life's own goals and failings. In stark contrast to the successful, if not particularly outstanding, spectacle scenes, where logic fetishists can boldly feed their tally sheets again, this results in a not always completely rounded overall package, but a very poignant one that either invites you to reject it - or manages to make you take it to your heart.
