Movie Review: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’

Opening in theaters June 28 is ‘A Quiet Place: Day One,’ directed by Michael Sarnoski and starring Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, and Djimon Hounsou.

Related Article: ‘Black Panther’s Lupita Nyong’o to Star in ‘A Quiet Place’ Spin-Off ‘Day One’

Initial Thoughts

Although ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ already documented the arrival of the first movie’s vicious aliens via opening flashbacks, this prequel makes the choice to tell more or less the same story again, only on a bigger canvas. ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ is set in New York City, as opposed to the quiet rural town of John Krasinski’s first two films, giving new director and writer Michael Sarnoski a much wider field to play on.

Sarnoski made a bracing debut in 2021 with ‘Pig,’ an affecting study of loss and love hiding within a crime thriller, anchored by a brilliant Nicolas Cage performance. Although he’s thrust into blockbuster territory with ‘Day One,’ the movie’s quieter moments are what work best, providing brief moments of human empathy amidst the otherwise familiar mechanics of the alien invasion we’ve seen in the two previous ‘A Quiet Place’ entries.

Story and Direction

Opening on a bird’s-eye view of New York City (with a title card telling us that the city constantly generates 90 decibels of noise), Sarnoski zeroes in on Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a bitter young woman ravaged by cancer and living out her last days in a hospice. Her caregiver, Reuben (Alex Wolff), encourages her to come with him and the other patients into Manhattan to see a show – but boy did they pick the wrong day, even if Samira is enticed by the promise of pizza and being allowed to bring her faithful cat, Frodo (get it, Sam and Frodo?) along with her.

Not long after the show – and in case the jet fighters that buzzed the city earlier and the helicopters whizzing overhead at this point didn’t tip it off enough — the sky is suddenly full of meteorites streaking down to Earth, carrying our hideous extraterrestrial pals from the first two films, who can’t see for beans but track everything – including the scores of hapless humans they pick off within minutes of landing – by sound.

As everything on the streets goes to hell, the group bus is caught in an explosion. Samira stumbles out, covered in chalk-white dust – filmmakers are still reaching back for that 9/11 imagery, some 23 years later – and watching in horror as people around her are picked off one by one. Another explosion sends her through a storefront and knocks her out. She wakes up sometime later, back in the theater with other survivors that include Frodo, Reuben, and a man named Henri – played by Djimon Hounsou in what is essentially an origin story for the character he played in ‘A Quiet Place Part II.’

Sam and Frodo eventually leave the theater, with Sam still determined to get to Harlem for pizza at a place called Patsy’s. Why she thinks that Patsy’s will be open and serving as New York City crumbles into smoking ruins is one of the more inexplicable aspects of the narrative here. Along the way, she comes across a young Englishman named Eric (Joseph Quinn, soon to be seen as the Human Torch in ‘The Fantastic Four’), who’s prone to panic attacks and doesn’t want to be alone, so Sam grudgingly lets him accompany her.

The burgeoning friendship between Sam and Eric is probably the best part of ‘A Quiet Place: Day One,’ with Nyong’o and Quinn doing a lot of the heavy lifting to make one feel something for two otherwise thinly written characters. All we know about Nyong’o is that she has cancer, is a poet, and wants pizza; we know even less about her companion, but the longish second act does allow their relationship to breathe a bit.

That’s where this movie works: in developing a relationship where there was none before. After all, the first two movies were about a family; the dynamics and love were already there. If ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ is good at one thing, it’s showing us that unimaginable tragedy and horror can bring total strangers together to help each other as well.

The rest of the movie – that is, the action sequences between the Sam/Eric stuff – is on rinse/repeat cycle: monsters attack, everyone gets quiet, someone accidentally makes a noise, monsters attack again. Refreshingly, we’re not given a whole lot of exposition again about how the creatures operate via sound alone; on the other hand, everyone seems to learn this rather quickly. Also, where exactly do eight million people in New York City go in the space of a day? What is the government response other than a few helicopters flying overhead and knocking out the bridges? And why does Frodo the cat – who arguably steals the movie – never meow or hiss once?

The Cast

Lupita Nyong’o is a transformational actor. She looks totally different here from her turn in the ‘Black Panther’ movies, which look just as different from her work in ’12 Years a Slave.’ As mentioned above, Sam is not a particularly well-fleshed-out character when we meet her, but Nyong’o has a way of bringing out pain, warmth, and humanity all at the same time.

Joseph Quinn is not quite on her level, but he’s equally empathetic and often humorous – a young man who’s totally lost and alone in a different way than Sam. He’s afraid, and he almost gives into panic, but he is able to muster himself up and even make good decisions along the way. We haven’t seen his work as Eddie Munson on ‘Stranger Things,’ but we’re convinced Quinn will be a terrific Johnny Storm (as long as he gets the American accent down).

That’s pretty much it – Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou get very little to do (Hounsou setting up a movie that’s already three years old aside), so this is largely a two-hander for most of its running time. Thankfully, Nyong’o and Quinn are up to the task.

Final Thoughts

We went into this with low expectations: first, because it’s a prequel and they are always problematic from a narrative point of view, and second, because we weren’t big fans of the two popular previous ‘A Quiet Place’ entries to begin with. But we liked ‘Day One’ a hell of a lot more than ‘Part II,’ if only because our main characters here don’t make as many dumb mistakes, and we may even like it best of the three.

But familiarity also breeds contempt, and ‘Day One’ certainly does nothing to advance the mythology of the entire franchise, especially with regards to the aliens. Aside from one brief, puzzling scene in what looks like an alien garden, we learn nothing new about these creatures or their purpose here. Even with a few tense set pieces, the attacks and chases take on a numbing sameness.

Sarnoski benefits from excellent sound, and gets some decent mileage out of his sets (England’s Leavesden Studios, home of ‘Harry Potter,’ stands in for the streets of New York), but even the post-apocalyptic urban milieu seems commonplace now. ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ does succeed in putting some heart into what could have been a fully generic cash grab, and Sarnoski again shows that he knows how to work with major actors while also displaying the confidence to make a film on a larger scale. But the quietly poignant half-movie that Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn star in is much more interesting that the monster movie noisily wrapped around it.

‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.

What is the plot of ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’?

On the first day of an invasion by aliens that hunt living things by sound, a woman dying of cancer (Lupita Nyong’o ) tries to make her way uptown in Manhattan while befriending a fellow survivor (Joseph Quinn) who’s lost and alone as the world crashes down around them.

Who is in the cast of ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’?

• Lupita Nyong’o as Samira
• Joseph Quinn as Eric
• Alex Wolff as Reuben
• Djimon Hounsou as Henri
• Elaine Umuhire as Zena

Other Movies in the ‘A Quiet Place’ Franchise:

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