–With 2018’s A Quiet Place, actor and filmmaker John Krasinski stumbled upon a powerful formula, one built to inspire a series. The set up is this – the planet has been invaded by a blind alien race that will hunt and kill anything that makes a sound. The only way to survive is to stay silent.
The way that plays out is simple. Again and again, these films run the same play – oh no we have to be quiet, oh no we made a noise, oh no run.
It might sound silly, but with the right actors, it works like gangbusters. But you need a particular kind of actor to pull it off.
Allow me to oversimplify things for a moment. There are two types of transcendent leading performers: Those you love to observe, and those you feel for. And a film lives or dies on picking the right one for the role.
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Take Tom Hanks, for example. Hanks’s career was built on how good he is at getting us to feel for him. Cast Away is set almost entirely on a desert island, and the film’s emotionality is rooted in Hanks’s ability to feel like our friend, or make us imagine ourselves in his shoes. Because of that, when he loses his best friend, a volleyball he’s named Wilson, we cry with him.
Actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise, on the other hand, capture our attention, but rarely make us cry. Cruise is always magnetic, but when you watch a film such as Mission: Impossible – Fallout, you appreciate him, but you never imagine you are him, nor someone you could be friends with. He’s something unknowable, but that detachment from us is part of the allure.
Swap these two archetypes, and everything falls apart. Imagine Cruise or DiCaprio in the Wilson scene in Cast Away, and the whole thing becomes funny. Ditto if you put Hanks in a role such as Mission: Impossible's Ethan Hunt – he’s not an actor built to inspire awe.
The A Quiet Place franchise needs actors you feel for. It’s thriller fare built on near-constant chase scenes. If we’re not emotionally invested in the people running for their lives, it would get boring – or we’d start rooting for the monster, as many do when watching campy horror films such as Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th.
The first one worked because of Krasinski – the former star of The Office who is a born everyman. The second one didn’t work as well because it relied only on his co-star Emily Blunt, who is the type of magnetic performer you enjoy as a screen presence but don’t feel connected to.
That’s precisely why A Quiet Place: Day One, now in cinemas across the Middle East, works so well. The film, set in New York City on the day that the monsters first land, brings together Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o and British actor Joseph Quinn as two strangers who band together in silence to survive their impossible scenario.
The film is directed by Michael Sarnoski, whose previous film Pig transcended its John Wick-esque set up by populating it with actors who wear their hearts on their sleeve and treat each with compassion.
He employs a similar strategy here, but this time with one hand tied behind his back. The film’s lack of dialogue forced him to find actors who can accomplish the same thing primarily through physicality, something both Nyong’o and Quinn excel at.
The Academy Award-winning Nyong’o, 41, is more proven in this regard, having stolen every scene she’s appeared in since her breakout role in 2013’s 12 Years A Slave. Curiously, however, Hollywood has largely failed to recognise her as an actress tailor-made for genre filmmaking.
Jordan Peele harnessed her magic perfectly in 2019’s Us, and it took five years for another comparable title to do it again. Hopefully, her performance here, anchored by her expressive eyes and honestly-drawn interiority, causes her phone to ring a bit more often.
The 30-year-old Quinn, meanwhile, is a more unproven commodity on the big screen. Day One marks his first major leading-man role since his breakout performance in season four of Stranger Things, and his work here augers well for his upcoming roles in Fantastic Four and Gladiator II – and hopefully sets him up to grab one of the lead Beatles roles in Sam Mendes’s upcoming series.
The British actor manages the feat of delivering an overstated performance that still somehow feels understated. From the moment he appears on screen in a tattered hand-me-down suit, he looks like he may burst into tears – or perhaps just combust all together – at any moment. With some actors, an overly emotional performance inspires eye rolls. Quinn makes you want to give him a hug.
And the bond between the two lost toys traversing their abandoned island feels believable throughout, made even more powerful because it never veers towards romantic. And all of that goes without discussing the film’s best character – a pet cat who is the best on-screen feline since Ulysses in 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis.
It’s hard to say where this franchise may go next after this soft reboot, or how many more the formula may sustain. But A Quiet Place: Day One, at least, makes it clear what makes this engine purr.
Match info
Deccan Gladiators 87-8
Asif Khan 25, Dwayne Bravo 2-16
Maratha Arabians 89-2
Chadwick Walton 51 not out
Arabians won the final by eight wickets
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
Look north
BBC business reporters, like a new raft of government officials, are being removed from the national and international hub of London and surely the quality of their work must suffer.
The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Trailblazer
Price, base / as tested Dh99,000 / Dh132,000
Engine 3.6L V6
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Power 275hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque 350Nm @ 3,700rpm
Fuel economy combined 12.2L / 100km
Spain drain
CONVICTED
Lionel Messi Found guilty in 2016 of of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying €4.1m in taxes on income earned from image rights. Sentenced to 21 months in jail and fined more than €2m. But prison sentence has since been replaced by another fine of €252,000.
Javier Mascherano Accepted one-year suspended sentence in January 2016 for tax fraud after found guilty of failing to pay €1.5m in taxes for 2011 and 2012. Unlike Messi he avoided trial by admitting to tax evasion.
Angel di Maria Argentina and Paris Saint-Germain star Angel di Maria was fined and given a 16-month prison sentence for tax fraud during his time at Real Madrid. But he is unlikely to go to prison as is normal in Spain for first offences for non-violent crimes carrying sentence of less than two years.
SUSPECTED
Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid's star striker, accused of evading €14.7m in taxes, appears in court on Monday. Portuguese star faces four charges of fraud through offshore companies.
Jose Mourinho Manchester United manager accused of evading €3.3m in tax in 2011 and 2012, during time in charge at Real Madrid. But Gestifute, which represents him, says he has already settled matter with Spanish tax authorities.
Samuel Eto'o In November 2016, Spanish prosecutors sought jail sentence of 10 years and fines totalling €18m for Cameroonian, accused of failing to pay €3.9m in taxes during time at Barcelona from 2004 to 2009.
Radamel Falcao Colombian striker Falcao suspected of failing to correctly declare €7.4m of income earned from image rights between 2012 and 2013 while at Atletico Madrid. He has since paid €8.2m to Spanish tax authorities, a sum that includes interest on the original amount.
Jorge Mendes Portuguese super-agent put under official investigation last month by Spanish court investigating alleged tax evasion by Falcao, a client of his. He defended himself, telling closed-door hearing he "never" advised players in tax matters.
Points classification after Stage 4
1. Arnaud Demare (France / FDJ) 124
2. Marcel Kittel (Germany / Quick-Step) 81
3. Michael Matthews (Australia / Sunweb) 66
4. Andre Greipel (Germany / Lotto) 63
5. Alexander Kristoff (Norway / Katusha) 43
FA CUP FINAL
Manchester City 6
(D Silva 26', Sterling 38', 81', 87', De Bruyne 61', Jesus 68')
Watford 0
Man of the match: Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Biog:
Age: 34
Favourite superhero: Batman
Favourite sport: anything extreme
Favourite person: Muhammad Ali
Brief scores:
Day 2
England: 277 & 19-0
West Indies: 154
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
The fake news generation
288,000 – the number of posts reported as hate speech that were deleted by Facebook globally each month in May and June this year
11% – the number of Americans who said they trusted the news they read on Snapchat as of June 2017, according to Statista. Over a quarter stated that they ‘rarely trusted’ the news they read on social media in general
31% - the number of young people in the US aged between 10 and 18 who said they had shared a news story online in the last six months that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate
63% - percentage of Arab nationals who said they get their news from social media every single day.
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
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Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
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