"You? You married Emily Blunt?" This was the reaction American actor, director and screenwriter John Krasinski got from a grumpy British customs agent when he went to the UK to meet his wife, who was filming Mary Poppins Returns. Unable to stomach the fact that Krasinski might actually be married to the popular British actress, the condescending agent aggressively stamped his passport before letting him go. The agent was also less than happy to learn that Krasinski starred in the American version of the cult comedy The Office, originally a BBC show. Krasinski recounted the incident in a recent episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he was invited as a guest in the run up to the release of his new 'horror' film, A Quiet Place. It was vintage Krasinski—unassuming, dorky and impishly charming, the same characteristics that made Jim Halpert, the character he played in The Office, endearing to millions across the world.
But, if the airport incident were to happen today, the same agent would be kinder to Krasinski; he might even tentatively pose a few queries about the latter's latest, groundbreaking directorial venture. Having already garnered the best domestic box office opening since Black Panther at $50 million, A Quiet Place is well on its way to cross the $100 million mark in the US alone. And judging by the quiet hysteria it has caused in theatres around the globe, the film is set to be remembered as one of the most powerful, genre-defying thrillers, in the same league as Get Out and The Babadook. The film tracks a family of four (with a new member on its way) living a life of silence in a farm in upstate New York, at a time when the world is threatened with extinction—hulking, scavenging predators with advanced hearing capabilities are on the prowl. No one is allowed to scream or laugh or cry or cough in A Quiet Place; if you do, the strange, marauding monsters will quell your existence in one smooth slash.
The campy alien invasion trope has been rejigged with taut editing, brilliant execution, some genuinely terrifying moments, and a plot so beautifully contrived that you wouldn't want this family-under-siege to suffer in any other way, just for the kicks. It is a silent horror film, but also an existential piece of work where silence is both the saviour and the enemy. Stephen King, the master of horror, took to Twitter to praise the film "as an extraordinary piece of work,” he said. “Terrific acting, but the main thing is the SILENCE, and how it makes the camera’s eye open wide in a way few movies manage.” For someone whose directorial ventures have never received ratings beyond 45 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, how did Krasinski suddenly strike gold?
'A Quiet Place' poster
While Krasinski has never dabbled in horror or science fiction, he did make brief forays into the indie film scene with titles like Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (2009) and The Hollars (2016). This was viewed as a surprising change in trajectory for a man who interned with late night talk show host Conan O'Brien, later finding his footing as a beloved character in a long-running pop TV series. And the path ahead was far from easy. His 2009 movie—adapted from an avant garde David Foster Wallace short story cycle, a recalcitrant dissection of the male mindset—opened to lukewarm reception. But Krasinski's directorial prowess was noted. The movie, critics wrote, was intelligently conceived, though it lacked the depth of the book.
His next venture,The Hollars, too failed to move the critics, though it was lauded for its empathetic narration of a dysfuctional family tale. But Krasinski has broken new ground, commercially and artistically, with A Quiet Place. And the source of inspiration seems to have come from the unlikeliest of quarters. His experiences in The Office, says Krasinski, helped him mould the horror story that was "not intended to be a horror story". “I remember on The Office, the creator Greg Daniels said that my job was not to deliver the lines funny, but to deliver the lines. If someone laughs, that’s up to them. You just deliver the truth of the moment, and I applied it here. My goal is not that I set out to make a scary movie, I set out to make a movie about a family. If you were scared, it’s because you didn’t want to see anything happen to these people,” Krasinski said, in the New York premiere of the film.
Could this be an inflection point in the graph of a promising young filmmaker? Here is a silent prayer to his next film.