A Quiet Place Review: 9 Ups & 1 Down

3. The Agreeably Minimalist Storytelling

Through and through, A Quiet Place is an exercise in cinematic minimalism, from its dialogue-sparse script to a total lack of exposition, with the nature of the aliens' arrival never being explained beyond a few brief glimpses of newspaper reports offering a few hints.

Krasinski instead doubles down on characterisation and suspense, telling a highly compelling story through them rather than heaps of dialogue or excessive, outlandish action sequences.

From the savage opening sequence through to its terrific final shot, the film bucks a lot of what audiences might expect, staying true to its missive to deliver all killer, no filler. If only more movies about aliens hunting down humanity could have this much respect for the viewer and not bash them over the head with, well, everything.