Original Title:"A Quiet Place: Day One"
Spanish Title: "Un Lugar en Silencio: Día Uno"
Genre: Ciencia Ficción
Director: Michael Sarnosky.
Screenwriter: Michael Sarnosky.
Producers: Michael Bay; Andrew Form; Brad Fuller; John Krasinski.
Actors: Lupita Nyong'o; Joseph Quinn; Alex Wolff; Djimon Hounsou.
Synopsis: A woman named Sam finds herself trapped in New York City during an invasion of aliens with hypersensitive hearing.
Script Breakdown:
Linear Narrative.
"Save the Cat" Blake Snyder Beatsheet:
Opening Image:New York City + Prologue: "New York City emits an average of 90 decibels. It’s the volume of a constant scream."
Theme:The imminent death and the reasons to live.
Setup:Sam, a terminal cancer patient, is surviving her final stages of life. Living in a hospice on the outskirts of the city, she is taken downtown with her companion cat Frodo, with the promise of eating pizza from a very specific place: Patsy's.
Catalyst:Meteors fall in the city, causing chaos and releasing blind alien beings that hunt through their hypersensitive hearing.
Debate:Sam must evacuate the city by boat from the south area or, hopeful, take advantage of her last visit to the city to eat Patsy's pizza.
Break into Two:Sam goes in search of Patsy's pizza in the Harlem neighborhood.
B Story:Eric, a man in panic and fear, begins to follow Sam. She, alone, and against the flow of survivors, warns him of her journey. Eric decides to accompany her and they embark on the journey together.
Fun and Games:Sam and Eric search for her medicines in her apartment, where Eric learns about her illness, that she was a poet, and that her father was a Jazz pianist. Sam tries to escape from him, but Eric stays by her side. In a miscalculation, Sam causes a loud noise that attracts the monsters, and they chase them through the city, a building, and the flooded subway tracks where Eric suffers a panic attack. However, they manage to escape through the water, where the monsters cannot survive.
Midpoint:Sam cannot continue without her medicines, which prevent her from feeling the muscle pain caused by her illness. Eric ventures into the city to get them, accompanied by Frodo.
Bad Guys Close In:Eric gets the medicines in a collapsed pharmacy, but Frodo escapes, following a trail of blood. Eric follows to bring him back to Sam, not knowing that the cat has led him into the monsters' nest. Surrounded, and about to be devoured by them, he calms his panic thanks to his adrenaline state, survival instinct, and clear objective. Eric manages to get out of there, bringing Sam her medicines and her cat.
All Is Lost:As Sam regains strength, she explains to Eric that her father also died of cancer and that he used to take her to see him play before going for pizza at Patsy's. However, when they arrive at the pizzeria, Sam's hopes are dashed upon seeing it devastated by a fire.
Dark Night of the Soul:Eric makes Sam show him the Jazz club where her father used to play. Once there, she charges her music player while he brings her a pizza from a nearby place he finds. Even though it is not Patsy's pizza, it is enough for Eric to create a new memory, and they both play a silent show to give Sam a glimpse of joy in the place that brings her the best memories.
Break into Three:Near the river, they see the rescue boat sailing by, but to reach it, they must cross a few hundred meters infested with monsters.
Climax:Knowing the difficulty of such an idea, Sam gives her cat and coat to Eric. She throws various objects at the abandoned cars, activating their alarms and distracting the monsters so that Eric can reach the dock and jump into the water, chased by the monsters... to be rescued by the boat.
Final Image:Sam walks through the abandoned streets of New York City, listening to music with her headphones. She disconnects them to hear the Jazz at full volume, reminding her of her father and feeling alive for the last time.
The importance of a good ending: I take the liberty of detailing the last two scenes of the film.
Opinion:
"A Quiet Place: Day One" is the prequel to the (current) eponymous trilogy by John Krasinski. The world in which the events take place is wonderful; captivating. Essentially, it creates immense tension and takes you on an empathetic journey.
However, when a world originally exists for a single production and is repeated commercially, it is normal to find certain flaws or repetitions of concepts and/or situations. In this case, it is not easy to delve into a story that we know more and more about.
At first, it seemed to me that the characters' conflicts were "excuses" to justify the events of the film, but the truth is that they led survival to another side, to a lonely person whose death was already expected, so what reasons would she have to survive that alien invasion?
The friendship that develops with Eric, a man who seems unable to live alone, almost acting like a child, is beautiful and very emotional. On the other hand, Frodo, the cat, is a fundamental element for the film to generate tension, as well as affection and empathy. It is Sam's only company and, at the same time, it is an animal that many of us find endearing. This, coupled with the behaviors that a cat can have in daily life and its level of spontaneity, make it always a surprise element to know if it will be responsible for the death of either of the two protagonists.
This is a story about death, and its inevitability, but at the same time, about knowing how to take advantage of moments and cherish the ones we have already lived.
