A Quiet Place: Day One Is About the Pandemic
And it's the first good (American) COVID movie.
Originally, I wasn’t going to see this movie. I saw A Quiet Place (the first one) in theaters whenever that came out. Didn’t care much for it, so not even Cillian Murphy’s presence could persuade me to watch the sequel. The hiring of director Michael Sarnoski for this prequel dissuaded me further, as I wasn’t a fan of his prior movie Pig, the Nic Cage truffle hunter pic. But the word of mouth on this was strong and one of my moviegoing buddies wanted to see it. And I was unexpectedly moved by its allusions to the early days of the COVID pandemic.
You’re probably familiar with the premise, but a quick recap: it’s day one of the alien invasion that ultimately destroys human society, the aftermath of which is depicted in the mainline A Quiet Place movies. These aliens are super strong and are attracted to sound. Make a noise and you die. The plot focuses on Sam (Lupita Nyong’o), who is terminally sick with cancer. She ventures from her hospice to Manhattan so she can have one last slice of pizza, and she’s not about to let a bunch of murderous aliens get in the way of her mission. It’s not like she was gonna live for much longer, anyways.
According to a title card in this movie, “New York gives off an average of 90 decibels… the sound of a constant scream.” (Citation needed.) Unsurprisingly, this alien invasion hits New York very hard. People are dying everywhere. Everyone shelters indoors, afraid of what might hurt them if they step outside. Solidarity is the best way to grapple with tragedy, but everyone is isolated from each other. Sound-hunting extraterrestrials, novel coronaviruses. Viewed through a certain lens, they’re not that different.
(I’m getting into some plot details, but there’s nothing that I think would ruin the movie if you haven’t seen it yet.)
The end of the first act was when it clicked that A Quiet Place: Day One was a feature-length COVID metaphor, particularly the early lockdown weeks. This is the part of the movie where the government announces, over loudspeakers, that everyone should go to the Seaport. The monsters don’t swim, so reaching a boat means reaching safety. In a haunting sequence, the shellshocked New Yorkers come out of hiding, faces caked in ash. Their silent shuffling down the avenue makes them come off more like zombies than human beings. But a massive group of people can’t help but make noise, enough to attract the aliens who slaughter most of these would-be survivors.
In this situation, it’s deadly to be around so many people. The only way to have a chance of surviving this was to go it alone, or maybe with one trusted person. In this case, it’s an English law student (Joseph Quinn), who eventually teams up with Sam to help her get that slice of pizza. (She’s also got a very resourceful cat, who somehow doesn’t meow once.)
I’m a little surprised not to have encountered anyone else writing about this pandemic angle when the metaphor is practically screaming at the viewer. (Maybe I’m just off my rocker lol.) In between all the monster attacks, there are fleeting moments that took me back to those early pandemic days. A silent, dusty jazz bar, with an untouched piano that may never sound another note. The lifeless, empty avenues. A chessboard in a park, the match never to be completed. The lingering sense of death, the terror of not knowing how this will end.
It’s a feat that Michael Sarnoski, the film’s writer and director, was able to turn a franchise prequel into a strikingly emotional story about survival, with a recent, real-world analogue adding emotional resonance1. The New York setting really drives it home, as that’s something I lived through, even if the movie was clearly filmed somewhere else. (The font used on the subway signs was completely wrong. Were they not able to license Helvetica?)
Earlier this year, culture writer Max Read explored whether there was a definitive “9/11 Movie,” with the original Godzilla as his reference point. (Godzilla is the definitive Japanese movie about the atomic bomb. This is not up for debate.) He pretty much concludes that there isn’t one. But adapting his taxonomy, A Quiet Place: Day One would slot in as a film that uses an “alien invasion or possibly supernatural destructive force as a [COVID] stand-in.”
You could argue that Day One is not really a COVID movie. For one, the alien invasion in A Quiet Place seems to have permanently altered civilization, while meanwhile our society has moved on from the pandemic, pretending like it never happened2. At the very least, it evokes the COVID era’s early days, when we really were all in this together.
In the four years since the initial outbreak, there have been quite a few narrative movies that directly or indirectly address the COVID pandemic. Some of them are great3. But all of the American ones have sucked. A Quiet Place: Day One is the first American movie I’ve seen that’s effective as a pandemic metaphor. I don’t think that this movie will turn out to be the Godzilla of COVID. It won’t be nearly as influential, and Godzilla is simply a better film. But it’s the first good American COVID movie, and that should count for something.
The Best New York Pizzeria
As the credits rolled, I had an unsurprising craving for a slice of pizza. I wasn’t anywhere near the famous Patsy’s Pizzeria in Harlem, which is where Sam goes in this movie. But I was a block away from R Slice, a new slice shop from the Roberta’s team. Ryan Sutton’s review was very enthusiastic. Located next to Penn Station, it was very hard to find (it’s in an alley next to the Los Tacos). And they hadn’t fully opened when I went, because it was closed on a Friday night4.
Disappointing as that was, it does mirror the plot of Day One — by the time Sam gets there, Patsy’s is completely destroyed. Fortunately, she’s able to get pizza from another shop around the corner, and I did the same thing. It wasn’t life changing, but it was good, and it satisfied my craving. The best pizza place in New York is the one that’s closest to you.
Some have viewed A Quiet Place Part Two as a COVID metaphor, but that movie was made before the pandemic, so it does not count.
Read makes a similar conjecture, that “9/11 was a tragedy of a different category and scale and coming in a vastly different historical… context than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
I’m particularly thinking of the Romanian film Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and the Japanese film Drive My Car, though both feature the pandemic literally and I’m thinking more about metaphor.
The hours for the Penn Station location aren’t online, and they never replied to my Instagram DM, so I have no idea when they’re actually operational. The Bushwick location has been open for a few months and should be more reliable.