John Krasinski | First Impressions

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A Quiet Place Part II picks up moments after its 2018 predecessor ends, its characters desperate for refuge from the terrifying predators hunting them. Seeking survivors, they encounter a family friend, now a recluse, having lost his wife and children. Emboldened by her discovery of a way to combat the aliens, the family’s deaf daughter makes a beeline for a radio station she believes can help, and what was a home invasion horror becomes an action adventure.

While accommodating this alteration in tone, A Quiet Place Part II offers, as sequels tend to do, more of what made the first film so successful, and it’s terrifically entertaining cinema – but a diminished experience, compared to its predecessor, in almost every way. We consider the film’s view of society, the uncritical whiteness in its casting and its inability to imagine ways of living that don’t involve the nuclear family unit; and the lack of threat we feel, despite its functional and well-orchestrated set-pieces – we simply never feel like these characters are at any real risk of being allowed to die.

We have problems with A Quiet Place Part II, but don’t let them dissuade you from seeing it. It’s exciting and made José jump time and time again – we just wish, both in cinematic and social terms, it could see beyond its rather narrow boundaries.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Thrilling to be in a cinema where you can hear a pin drop. The film sets up a brilliant premise. The world has been invaded by aliens who respond to sound. Once the aliens hear the sound, the living being who originated it will be killed in a manner of minutes. Thus, endless possibilities for generating suspense; and a platform for many experimentations with style and form, including giving actors the opportunity to convey emotion with their faces, gestures, postures; without dialogue.

We talk over its performances, its ending, the way it manipulates and moves characters to generate threatening situations, the intelligence of its editing in moving between storylines, the shortcuts it takes with its internal logic in order to keep the story moving, the theme of family and whether the film can be read as a metaphor for Trumps America. We also mull over a potential for a sequel and decry one plot decision in particular.

But fundamentally, we urge everyone to see it.