Expressing grief makes us vulnerable. We might be misunderstood. We might be attacked. Some people withdraw into themselves. Others become abrasive and push people away so that no one will sense the hurt that wants so desperately to be let out.
In A Quiet Place: Day One (a prequel to A Quiet Place), all Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) wants is a slice of New York-style pizza. Suddenly, with the arrival of the aliens, she finds herself in a situation where making any sound draws the attention of monsters and means instant death. But Sam is already dying, slowly and painfully, from cancer. In another sense, she died years ago. Once a gifted poet, she now writes profanity-filled garbage to snipe at the other hospice residents.
They were on an outing in Manhattan when the aliens landed and the leader of Sam’s group was killed. So with nothing to lose, Sam gathers her therapy cat, Frodo, and moves against the tide of people moving to safety, heading for a special Harlem pizzeria. Along the way, she meets Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British man in the U.S. for law school, who decides to join her. Between his anxiety attacks and her chronic pain, it seems unlikely that they’ll reach their goal.
There are jump scares, gut-wrenching deaths, and an underwater chase that might leave some breathless, but director Michael Sarnoski fails to achieve the nail-biting tension of the other installments. Where Day One succeeds is, not ironically, in the quiet moments, when the monsters are elsewhere and Sam and Eric express their hurt. C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed, “No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.” Ultimately, Day One is a story about dealing with grief, with the extraterrestrials standing in as a metaphor for all the surrounding emotions.
Sam is still mourning the death of her father, and her quest for pizza isn’t really about pizza. Like so many people who are still grieving long after the well-wishers have gone on with their lives, she makes herself unapproachable to keep from sharing her pain. Now, with the introduction of aliens that hunt by sound, she can’t. Yet Eric, for all his weaknesses, is the friend she needs and one who can be trusted to help carry her burden.
Fans of parts one and two might be frustrated by Day One and find it boring. This story lacks the same balance of peril and pathos, leaning into the character study so much that it doesn’t really fit in with the franchise. On its own, however, it’s a thoughtful, beautifully shot and acted meditation on grief.
And if I might close with a minor spoiler: Frodo lives! (Paramount. Rated PG-13 for terror and violent content/bloody images.)
About the Author
Trevor Denning is an alumni of Cornerstone University and lives, lifts weights, and spends too much time in his kitchen in Alma, Mich. His first short story collection is St. George Drive and Other Stories.