A quiet place

By Mia Pohlman

I recently watched the movie "A Quiet Place" -- which was released in April 2018 -- and was deeply moved by it. The film was directed by Jon Krasinski (you might know him as Jim from the television show "The Office"), who also co-wrote the screenplay and stars in it with his real-life wife, Emily Blunt. The movie is the rare kind that combines intellect, emotion and truth: it is a smart film with heart.

The basic plot is this: in a post-apocalyptic world, a family must remain silent in all they do, in order to survive being hunted by creatures that are extremely adept at hearing, creatures that kill people if they make noise.

It doesn't sound like the premise for a beautiful movie. This, in my opinion, is part of what makes it so brilliant.

This basic premise is only the vehicle Krasinski uses to explore deeper themes of what make us human. The movie asks the question, "What if we as humans couldn't make noise?" and then explores that concept.

It turns out being able to make noise is elemental to who we are as humans. We make noise with nearly everything we do: from basic things like playing board games and eating meals together, to more traumatic experiences such as accidentally hurting ourselves or giving birth. This film is an exploration of what happens when the ability to release emotion through making noise -- a basic tenant of being human -- is taken away.

Beyond the exploration of this question is a theme that probes even deeper: at the heart of the story is a daughter's fear she is not loved by her father. She fears she is, in fact, unloveable because of a mistake she made out of disobedience to her father and out of love for her sibling, a mistake that caused deep pain for her family. The movie discusses how important it is for us as people that we know and believe we are loved by those who created us -- our parents and, the way I see it, our Creator. It is a story of forgiveness.

This movie is also a story about a father's love for his daughter. And it's a story about a mother's love for life and her purpose to help life survive and thrive. It's a story that displays the strength of both woman and man, a story of deep love.

It is the story of the fall of people in the Garden of Eden, the story of the prodigal daughter, the story of the saving of humankind through Christ's sacrifice. Despite a couple of parts that are mildly cheesy, it is the story of both the weakness and the goodness of the human condition, the beauty we are capable of when we live in love and let our love for others be sacrificial, the way Christ's is for us.

If you decide to watch the movie, I hope it gives you good food for thought and good food for the soul, too, and that you are drawn deeper into God's love for you through it.