By Francis Merencillo

“A Quiet Place” is truly an astounding film, and definitely a must watch on your Saturday night movie list. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world infested by monsters that rely on sound to hunt their prey. A catchphrase in the trailer was, “if they can’t hear you, they can’t hunt you.”

Aside from the breath-holding thrill that it provides as blind creatures hunt an about-to-give-birth Evelyn Abbot (Emily Blunt), the movie also tackles issues that modern families face today. 

Central to these is the theme of grief, as the Abbot family deals with the death of one of their youngest children, Beau Abbot (Cade Woodward), who becomes a victim of the eyeless monsters that hunt humans. The film also shows the struggles that parents have with their children, and vice versa, where communication is difficult within the world of silence the Abbot family must live in to survive. 

Although “A Quiet Place” had an estimated budget of $17 million which is considerably less than an average movie production, the film earned more than $50 million during its opening weekend in the U.S alone. 

Director John Krasinski told Variety Magazine, “Honestly, that was mostly due to the insane amount of talent we had on our crew. We had an A-level group from top to bottom.”

The movie stars real life Hollywood couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as Lee and Evelyn Abbot, alongside Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe who play their children. Simmonds, who plays Regan Abbot, their deaf and headstrong daughter is deaf in real life. Krasinski said, “I found myself asking her all the time ‘is this right?’ and she would be like ‘maybe do it more like this?’ She was not intimidated at all.” 

Because the film is silent a majority of the time, “A Quiet Place” relies on ASL (American Sign Language) for most of its dialogue — and the cast had to learn it.

Simmonds told Now This News how her role made an impact in the deaf community. She hoped the story would inspire other directors to be more creative in their works and include not only deaf talents, but also other disabled actors as well. As an advocate for the deaf community, Simmonds wants to inspire individuals like herself, and show them that they can be whatever they aspire to be and, through perseverance, can achieve anything.