"A Quiet Place" - film

Here's the plot outline from Wikipedia.

Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds turn in the best performances

"In the year 2020 most of Earth's human population has been wiped out by a race of sightless, extra-terrestrial creatures with hypersonic hearing. The creatures use a form of echolocation to hunt.

The Abbott family—husband Lee (Krasinski), wife Evelyn (Blunt), deaf daughter Regan, sons Marcus and Beau—scavenge for supplies while remaining as silent as possible and communicating nonverbally through American Sign Language. The entire family also walk around barefoot everywhere, so as to make no sound with every step they take."

Bottom line: you should see it.

As we sat waiting for the start I wondered how they were going to hold our attention. Ninety minutes in which a small family in a cabin in the middle of nowhere are pursued by monsters resembling the creature from Alien crossed with a bat. A movie where to talk is to die.

They did it by superimposing a family story-arc which, to save spoilers, I'll leave to the film (or you can read the Wikipedia article).

1. Plot holes

In the basement (pictured above) the father has a lab with electronic equipment, monitors and CCTV. Outside, in the adjacent landscape, there's an extensive light grid (like runway landing lights) occupying hundreds of square meters. I conservatively estimate 10-20kW to keep all that powered up. Civilization has collapsed, so where are they getting their power from?

Don't say a diesel generator. Do you have any idea how noisy those things are? And I didn't see any Tesla Powerwall.

I find this unlikely

The monsters have a weakness (naturally!) that any military R&D lab would figure out in an hour's brainstorming. They occupy a similar niche to the sabre-toothed tiger - a species our hunter-gatherer ancestors saw off with collaborative spear-throwing. A couple of machine guns and plenty of ammo would have solved their problem once and for all.

2. The narrative arc

The film does not depend on any of these plot incongruities. Focus instead on the family's overwhelming vulnerability, and empathise with how they cope. It's really a girl's film. One reviewer observed that in some subterranean sense it's a Christian film, one rooted in faith and family.

The movie plays with familiar tricks. A slow start to raise the tension, half-hidden views of ultrafast predator attack, sudden noises which are false alarms, the overcoming of a menace followed rapidly (as you relax) by an even greater threat.

These tropes are effective and the characters rounded, believable and sympathetic. Best performances are from the mother (Emily Blunt) and the deaf daughter, who has the key to the puzzle (Millicent Simmonds).

3. Conclusions

It passed my watch test, I wasn't tempted to look although I surfaced from total immersion just a couple of times.