A QUIET PLACE Review by Lisa Johnson Mandell

If you would have told me I’d be absolutely riveted and wide awake through the entirety of an hour-and-a-half film with only about five minutes of dialogue, I would have told you you were demented. But to his ample credit, writer/director/star John Krasinski has come up with something quite brilliant, on a level with new horror films like Get Out, and classics like my childhood favorite Wait Until Dark.

The concept is quite simple: a mother, father and their three children are living in a rustic world where alien-looking monsters (who go largely unseen) pray upon any living thing that makes noise. They can’t see you or smell you, but make the slightest sound, and they’re suddenly on you, leaving little time to run and hide. How do you express love, pleasure or pain in a world like that? You’re on the edge of your seat praying that no one gets an allergy and has to sneeze, or stumbles and accidentally swears.

The actors work miracles with the limitations, expressing much with only sign language and facial expression. Krasinski is the resolved and resourceful father, his real life wife Emily Blunt is the long-suffering earth mother, Noah Jupe and Cade Woodward are young sons. But it’s young Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck) who steals the show as the deaf and guilt-ridden daughter. She is also hearing impaired in real life, and expresses the most profound emotions without words.

Marco Beltrami’s compelling score is also a character in the film, creating tension, suspense and comfort without resorting to cliched devises.

A Quiet Place is a film that demands something of the audience, and the audience willingly, breathlessly complies. The film portends great things to come from Krasinski

Rated PG-13

1 Hour 30 Minutes

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

A QUIET PLACE Review by Lisa Johnson Mandell

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