In a post-apocalyptic present, a mother with two kids run for their lives as a menacing presence of unknown origin, when seen, forces people to take their own lives.
Here’s the film’s obvious pitch: The Happening (2008) meets A Quiet Place (2018). Let me put it this way: It doesn’t meet either. Both raise important questions but provide, to a certain level, some answers, leaving the viewer speculating about the cause and effect based on the clues they provide.
Bird Box raises questions and doesn’t bother at all with answers. No one with a basic level of intelligence will stare at the ceiling as the end credits roll down, contemplating what these entities (?) could potentially be. Not revealing them is absolutely fine in my books. The unseen yet sensed ominous presence can be terrifying indeed. Not revealing their origins, their purpose, their powers, nothing whatsoever, makes them as unrelatable as the characters themselves. So, yeah, there is that, too.
Susanne Bier has done a terrific job behind the camera. Bird Box is a well-shot, well-edited, and well-produced film. So, I will quote (again) Howard Hawks: “You can’t fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen”. Months before, Netflix also produced How It Ends (2018), with the reviews being as embarrassing as they come – especially on How It Ends! I guess history teaches us that we are not taught from history after all…
Sandra Bullock is still an amazing actress and keeps nailing the parts she gets, even in this one. So, I really hope we see her in films she deserves to be in, not films like Ocean’s Eight (2018). Actually, I hope we never have to see any film like Ocean’s Eight (2018) again, not even blindfolded.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
