Bird Box laid out its ground rules early on. It starred Oscar-winning Sandra Bullock as she looked directly into the camera in an attention-seeking close-up, and in its opening scene it already explained to the viewers what the world has become.
Bullock is Malorie, a woman who somehow survived the Apocalypse and she has two young kids named Boy and Girl, perhaps she chose to give them those names in an effort to not develop emotional attachment.
They are about to undertake the most dangerous journey of their lives, that’s what she told them. The two kids needed to obey every Malorie’s command otherwise, they’d die. They must never open their eyes, even if they hear a noise because if they do, they’d die. Blindfolded, Boy and Girl nodded silently.
Now just to point out before we move further, I have never read the book to which this film is based on.
Bird Box was written by the Oscar-nominated writer of Arrival, Eric Heisserer, who gave it a unique structure, and as it is made abundantly clear in that opening, it also had clever ways of communicating vital exposition about the origins of the Apocalypse.
The central idea in Bird Box is somewhat similar to what we saw in M Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and John Krasinski’s recent thriller, A Quiet Place.
So certain “creatures” have arrived on Earth, and by mere looking at them with their naked eyes compelled them to have paranoia and will lead then to commit suicide. After making a landfall in Russia, the supposed “monsters” arrived in America, who responded immediately by shutting down its borders – and so the story began.
But perhaps the most prominent narrative choice Heisserer made was by setting most of the movie in flashbacks. After the stakes have been revealed in that opening scene, we are quickly taken back to five years when Malorie was a reclusive artist with social anxiety.
On a trip to the doctor with her sister – when we first meet Malorie, pregnant with a child she clearly did not plan for nor appeared to want it – all hell breaks loose when people started harming themselves. Malorie’s survival instinct kicked into gear – the first of many character moments that developed her into the mother she is so terrified of becoming – and she hightailed it out there, ending up in a house with a cantankerous old man named Douglas played by John Malkovich.
It is in this house that Bird Box spent the majority of its first couple of acts. It isn’t the post-Apocalyptic thriller that you’d perhaps have expected it to be, but a survival drama and even a locked-room mystery.
By trapping half-a-dozen contrasting personalities – which is maybe a nod to the title – inside a closed environment, during such a high-pressure situation, is a nifty way to add drama to the proceeding episodes, and root the high-concept science-fiction premise in real human emotion. And what a murderer’s row of talent Danish director Susanne Bier has assembled!
Joining Bullock and Malkovich in the ensemble are Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes, Animal Kingdom’s gangster matriarch Jacki Weaver, the great Sarah Paulson, Rosa Salazar from the upcoming Alita: Battle Angel, Get Out’s Lil Rel Howrey, rapper-actor Machine Gun Kelly, and an unrecognizable Parminder Nagra from Bend It Like Beckham.
But this is Bullock’s movie. We have seen her carry an entire film on her shoulders before, as recently as her Academy Award-winning turn in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, and as in this film, her character in Bird Box is confronted by the complex notion of motherhood. She’s a rare actor who can switch – on many occasions mid-scene – from fierce intensity to incredible warmth. It’s true the Heisserer’s screenplay gave her a meaty arc to work with, but her performance is the biggest draw for the movie.
As the audience formed connections with the characters, the film utilized flashbacks with the present. Bullock and the two kids making their great getaway across a perilous river. Rapids are approaching, and the only way to navigate them, she told the children, that one of them has to look.
Bier, meanwhile, lent a steady guiding hand to the boat. The film is unlike anything that she, even in her unending diverse filmography, has tackled before. She staged several nail-biting set pieces – nothing like what Krasinski achieved in A Quiet Place, though that were inserted in just the right moments. In one particular scene that involved driving “blind” with the help of a GPS, is quite suspenseful.
Of the supporting cast, Trevante Rhodes brought a much-needed emotional stability to the high strung proceedings, as well as a strong physical presence. But it is Malkovich as the endearingly terrible Douglas whose performance cranes its neck above the others’. He almost gives the impression of having improvised many of his own lines, because I could swear the last time I’ve heard a movie character that used the insult “simpleton”, it was played by Malkovich.
For all its taut thrills and ambitious ideas, Bird Box ended up trapping itself into the same cage that ensnared other high-concept sci-fi thrillers such as the forgotten Nicolas Cage movie, Knowing, and even the recent Alex Garland film, Annihilation. Its third act is far too grandiose in its themes, and an unexpected change of pace from the rather lean story we have seen so far. It did soar high when it needed to but crashed really badly in the end.
The Verdict: Has been misleadingly compared to A Quiet Place, only that film had real monsters, genuine suspense, and a much more intuitive set of rules of survival.
The Boompy Meter: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Meter Rating:
1 – Garbage
2 – Poor
2.5 – 50/50
3 – Good
3.5 – Very Good
4 – REALLY Good
4.5 – WOW!
5 – OMG! I just jizzed my pants! TOTALLY AWESOME!
