Magic Hate Ball posted:

This is a really solid 90-minute thrill ride. I loved the textured feel, the use of the silence concept was inspired and fun, and it's always a good time watching a movie that takes joy in its own inventiveness. There are definitely some clumsy and kind of adorably innocent elements (IT'S SOUND!) but Krasinski also gets in some nice little jabs of trauma (I was a big fan of the gutted old lady scene and the nail scene was a riot).

I love the implications of the premise. It's fun to imagine the aliens ripping through a rambunctious kindergarten or tearing up a snoring couple - there are so many elements of suggestion that allow you to fill out the previous events and it makes the film's world feel pretty successfully rounded.


He's trying to force her to be something she isn't, which I thought was a really good piece of true-feeling character development as those kinds of splits between hearing parents and deaf children are very real. See also his insistence on teaching his son how to fish, rather than let his obviously capable (and older!) daughter help out.