Bird Box

Bird Box

Starring Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson

Directed by Susanne Bier

The Story:
Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock) is an expectant single mother who's unsure whether or not she can actually love her child, and as she goes to the doctor with her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson), they hear word overseas about an event that causes people to kill themselves.

Before leaving the hospital, Malorie witnesses a woman trying to kill herself, and realizes that whatever happened overseas is happening there now, and the two sisters try to escape whatever is happening.  Taking refuge in a house with other survivors, Malorie struggles with her pregnancy in a now post-apocalyptic world, where no one can go outside otherwise they'll fall victim to whatever terror is out there.

Five years later, Malorie is now with Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair) as they traverse a river in search of a possible safe haven, but they all must remain blindfolded otherwise they'll succumb to the evil existing on the outside.

The Synopsis:
I've had multiple conversations in my life about which would be worse: deaf or blind.  Not trying to insult anyone out there who is one or the other, but to me being blind would be the worse of the two because I feel not being able to see is a significantly bigger handicap than being deaf.  That being said, the concept of "Bird Box" is absolutely terrifying to me, even if it didn't take place in the apocalypse.  An unknown evil exists on the outside, and if you see it, it causes you to kill yourself.  However, if you remain indoors with the windows blocked, or if you go out wearing a blindfold, you can survive.  Personally I feel that your eyesight is the most important of the senses (it's probably my ignorance to the facts, but that's how I feel), so having to forego that specific sense adds a more dangerous aspect to the film instead of, say, having to not hear the creatures instead.

Premiering on Netflix, "Bird Box" has been met with varying critiques, from those praising to the film to others comparing it to a weaker "A Quiet Place."  In my humble opinion, I feel that those who compare the film to the aforementioned horror film are missing the big picture - it's not.  Plain and simple.  It's its own entity, completely separate from the concept (in fact it's based on a book written way before "A Quiet Place" was released), and generally I hate comparing a film I'm watching to other films of the same ire.  While I won't say it's a masterstroke of genius, I will say I found the film pleasantly entertaining, somewhat terrifying, and absolutely unnerving.

The film takes place in two different time periods: one where the apocalypse begins, and the other five years later, and the film does a great job at going from one to the other.  While this isn't the route I would've taken (since it pretty much gives away that only Sandra Bullock's character and two children survive, despite there being a good amount of survivors met early on), I think it was done in a decent way that kept you enthralled in both stories equally.

As the apocalypse begins, we're gifted with some amazing scenes of a town spiraling into pure hell as people are running down the street, cars are crashing, things are exploding, and there's a surreal sense of dread that you can't escape.  The film doesn't rely on too much CGI, but instead uses practical terror to really hit home their message, and it's one I fully received and believed from the start.  It's in this chaos that we meet the supporting characters, those we know won't make it (or at least won't be with Bullock's Malorie in the end), so this is where it gets a bit hard to connect with them on a personal level.  Still, the performances are all strong, and there's an unbelievably talented pedigree that we're gifted with.

This leads to one of the small flaws I find with the film: it's very cliched.  The actors chosen to play the roles do well, but they're given such stock characters it's mindbogglingly simplistic.  Trevante Rhodes plays the hero Tom, who is the voice of reason for the group.  John Malkovich plays Douglas, the shoot-first-ask-questions-later survivor found in pretty much every apocalyptic film.  Jacki Weaver plays Cheryl, the wise older woman.  Rosa Salazar is Lucy, the no-nonsense Hispanic, while Colson Baker (better known as Machine Gun Kelly) plays Felix, the rough guy from the wrong side of the tracks.  Then there's Lil Rel Howery, who plays the comically crazed African American, Danielle Macdonald who plays the innocent, sheltered Olympia, and BD Wong as the sophisticated gay character Greg.  None of the characters are given more than what they're left to work with, and it really slows down the pace.

Yet the film rises or falls on Sandra Bullock's shoulders, and she does carry a hefty weight.  She performs brilliantly, giving Malorie a perfect blend of strength and fear in a way that she never really teeters to one side or the other.  Especially five years later, we see her as a hardened survivor who's not afraid to do the dangerous things to survive.  Here is where the film really differentiates itself from other apocalyptic films in that it doesn't cater to the kids in the film.  Most films like this that have children in it do a horrible job at it, as the kids are basically screaming, crying, annoying nuisances that are basically beacons for the bad guys, and the adults treat them with kid gloves (get it?) and treats them like the innocent sweet angels they are.  Not Malorie.  When she's instructing the kids on how to survive, she literally tells them she will hurt them if they take their blindfolds off, and literally pulls the Girl over the ground to save her from her own stupidity.  She's not coddling the kids, and she lets them know that.  Finally, a film that's not afraid to treat kids like the danger they would be in a situation like this.

The other issue I had with the film was the length.  It kind of dragged on for a little bit, and I found myself loosing interest at some points, as it seemed to tell too much expository story over substance in certain situations.  It's almost like it could've been two separate movies, and it would've fared better, but I was still involved in the film as a whole - but not in certain parts.

There's a lot of naysayers who nitpick the film, saying that they're upset that we don't know what the creatures are, why they can't get indoors, why some people can seemingly see and not die, and so on.  To me, I find that that's the saving grace of the film - it doesn't spoon feed us answers.  It throws us in the middle of it like its survivors, none of whom have any clue what's going on.  I feel if something like this happened in real life, we wouldn't know those answers either, and that adds to the terrifying nature of the story.  The bad guy looses its fear when we know its backstory, and here they smartly don't tell us a darn thing about them.

The Summary:
While not a perfect apocalyptic film, "Bird Box" does set itself apart in its acting caliber, offering a unique spin on the genre, and supplying enough thrills and chills to entertain us throughout a bit-too-long film.

The Score: A