MOVIE
A Quiet Place Pt II
Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds
Director John Krasinski
Review Ray Chan
A Quiet Place Part II is
quite literally a sequel, picking up directly where its preceding chapter left
off.
Unlike many offerings
where the follow-ups do not necessarily occur immediately after the initial episode,
Part II is set mere hours later, extrapolating on the first instalment’s
cliffhanger ending, which had resilient mother
Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) killing off inhuman attackers who were threatening
her and her kids: hearing-impaired Regan and introverted Marcus (Millicent
Simmonds, Noah Jupe).
But there’s a prelude
before the story continues, in which the viewer is taken back to the very
moment the Abbott clan witnessed first-hand the horrific experience that would
forever disrupt and change their lives.
Via the
flashback, we see how the Abbotts reacted to Earth’s new apex predator – blind, emaciated beings with chitinous armour and an acute sense of hearing – and provides an inkling of where they came from.
Flash forward
474 days, and the surviving members — including Evelyn’s newborn baby whose
crying could cost them all their lives — must leave their farm and seek shelter
at one of the other post-apocalyptic encampments, marked by bonfires on the
horizon.
Still living
by a code of silence lest they give their presence away, the Abbotts are lucky
that the first person they meet is an old friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy),
who’s been hiding out in an abandoned steel mill. It takes some convincing to
guilt him into helping them, but he soon turns out to be a de facto father figure, much like self-sacrificing family patriarch Lee (played by director Krasinski) from the first movie.
The two
leading ladies again take on prominent roles — especially fan favorite Regan,
whose cochlear implant already provided an almost-too-convenient defense
against the aliens.
It’s Regan’s
idea to find the nearest radio station and use her hearing aid to broadcast a
signal that could defeat the beasts once and for all. For one so young, Simmonds sparkles with her ability to demonstrate focus and ferocity, intelligence and composure.
Getting there
is doubly dangerous though, as she and Emmett encounter horrors both human and
alien along the way.
Indeed, this is just one
part of an overly complex, three-pronged arc that breaks up the family unit and
relegates Blunt to the background.
One story features Emmett
and Regan in the woods, off on their own odyssey, another Evelyn heading back
to town for medical supplies, while adjacent to that one, Marcus has to tend to
the baby, while also fending off one of the multi-toothed critters.
It’s perhaps an attempt at
a cross-cutting editing technique that appears too ambitious – but kudos for
the effort.
Interestingly, while Part II finished production well over a year ago, some observers might feel there is a deliberate allegorical attempt to link the creatures with the pandemic, which ironically kept the feature’s release in check.
Indeed, a world where everyone has to stay inside, not talking to strangers, mistrusting all the rest of “those people” out there, feels all too familiar. Hell, even the monsters’ heads look like enlarged COVID molecules.
Symbolically, the metaphor of familial strength and the “terror” of parenthood (whether offspring can truly be kept safe, no matter what) still come to the fore, but this film also floats the notion of survival and salvation for those who may not be worthy of it.
However, before audiences can catch their breath and even start to ponder about the themes, it ends on such an abrupt note that they might not find true emotional closure … at least, not until the next inevitable part of the franchise .
#AQuietPlace #nrcagency
