QUICK CUTS #1: Some Thoughts on “A Quiet Place” & “Blockers”
Jeff Siniard gives some quick takes on John Krasinski and the film people can’t stop talking about — pun intended — as well as a surprising tasteful teen comedy
Alright, who are we kidding — you know the drill here.
A Quiet Place
Man, this film has a terrific hook to get you in the theater…
…and unfortunately, A Quiet Place has no idea what to do with it.
This is disappointing, because director John Krasinski does a solid job setting up the action set-pieces; they’re directed so the geography is clear and easy to follow. He stages some solid jump scares, and he puts together one marvelously tense sequence where a very pregnant Evelyn Abbott (the always wonderful Emily Blunt) has to get from the basement to an upstairs bathroom without making a sound, even as her water breaks along the way.
Krasinski draws strong performances from his cast. Millicent Simmonds is terrific as Regan, their teenage daughter who happens to be deaf. The tension between her and her father seems at first like standard father/teenager stuff, but she adds nice shadings of resentment and insecurity. Krasinski himself is good as Lee Abbott, and he allows you to see how he’s had to seal himself up emotionally just to get through the stress of day-to-day survival.
The production design by Jeffrey Beecroft adds a layer of believability to the farm settings and the abandoned town which suggest a real catastrophe and which the story doesn’t take nearly as much advantage of as it could, because there’s little-to-no interest in world building. That’s a problem because horror films, more than maybe any other genre, work best when the hook acts as a metaphor, symbol, or allegory for other ideas. Without world-building, or those ideas, this film is simply about a family trying not to be killed by monsters.
In other words, the hook which got me into the theater hasn’t actually been thought out beyond what the plot needs to advance. For instance, how has no one figured out the weakness of the monsters, when their strength is also a clearly and obviously exploitable weakness? Why aren’t the parents using contraceptives? If the monsters can’t hear near running water, why isn’t the family living near the river or waterfall? Where’d they get all that sand? It’s one of those films where the internal logic falls apart if you think about it for more than 2 minutes.
Going a step further, it feels like this family is written to make mistakes for the sake of advancing the plot. Mistakes like: kids not following established directions, adults not making sure water pipes don’t leak into a basement, having limited diversions at the farm, and so on. Based on what we see in the film, it strains credulity to imagine this family has survived for over a year for any reason other than dumb luck.
A Quiet Place is a mildly scary funhouse film which could’ve been legitimately terrifying and great if the plotting and set-up had lived up to the hook.
My Rating:
Blockers
Blockers doesn’t have a hook as good as A Quiet Place — it’s basically a variation on the Prom/Teen Comedy.
That acknowledged, Blockers makes up for a lack of originality by (refreshingly) allowing the young women at the center of the story to own their sexuality. It’s a welcome change in a genre which has often glorified male sexual immaturity while sticking its female characters with the tired “Madonna/Whore” dichotomy.
Blockers also has a few dynamite comedic set-pieces, including the parents reading their daughters’ text messages, a drug-and-booze-fueled party by the lake, and the parents visiting the home of one of the boys. Kay Cannon (making her directorial debut) builds joke upon joke to turn funny moments into hysterical sequences with a veteran’s skill.
Among the young women, the standout is Geraldine Viswanathan as Kayla, the daughter of Mitchell (John Cena) and Marcie (Sarayu Blue). Kayla has absorbed the mental toughness behind her father’s obsession with sports, but there’s also an easygoing confidence which makes her character enormously appealing. Not only is she in charge of her mind and body, she’s never pushy or mean-spirited when it comes to anyone else. Kayla is the best thing about this film — it should be a “star is born” moment for Viswanathan.
Cena has a gift for physical comedy — I submit “beer bong in the ass” as evidence— and he’s surprisingly solid in the emotional moments. Best of all, Cena’s easy chemistry with Viswanathan results in a parent/child relationship that feels earned and authentic.
There’s also a sweet understated relationship between Sam (Gideon Adlon) and her estranged father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz). She clearly resents him for being absent for much of her life, but of all the parents in the film, he’s got the most intuitive read on his child — he’s guessed that Sam might be gay. Given Hunter’s character, a dry-drunk, over-compensating, absentee parent, it’s a nice grace note and an underused asset in the film.
However, I didn’t find the relationship between Lisa (Leslie Mann) and her daughter Julie (Kathryn Newton) all that interesting, and that’s a problem because this relationship is what much of the movie is built around. Mann is solid as always, but the conflict is centered around the standard “parent doesn’t want to let go” trope. There’s not much that’s interesting to play, and I think it’s why Julie is the least interesting of the three young women.
Like many comedies, Blockers also overstays its welcome by about 10–15 minutes. We get some flat stretches between the big comedy set-pieces, and the problem is more pronounced because the comedy set-pieces work so well. There’s also an excess of sentiment near the end.
Blockers isn’t a classic, but it’s certainly funny and it respects the sexuality and freedom of its characters. Throw in a few good performances, and it’s a notch or two better than the average Prom/Teen Comedy.
My Rating:
To get more thoughts from Jeff Siniard and his extensive love for movies, you can follow him @JeffSiniard and read his blog over at chasingthedamncat.blogspot.com.
