Day One Has the Perfect Runtime
This week, I went to a press screening of “A Quiet Place: Day One” (you can read my review right here). Now, thankfully, most press screenings do not have trailers, so that shaves off some time. But, this being the age of the bloated blockbuster, I fully expected the film to clock in at over 2 hours. With the screening starting around 7 PM, I was bracing myself to not get home until well after 10. Right after I parked my car at the theater, I brought out my phone and googled “‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ runtime.” Reader, a wave of relief washed over me when I saw the results: 1 hour and 39 minutes.
Perhaps I should’ve expected this. The original “A Quiet Place” is 90 minutes, and the sequel, “A Quiet Place Part II” is 97 minutes. But I genuinely thought I was going to sit down for a 2 hour+ movie. Again: there’s nothing wrong with long movies. But sometimes, you want something direct and to the point. And that’s one of the things that works in “A Quiet Place: Day One”‘s favor. Michael Sarnoski’s script is tight and economical — it doesn’t waste much time. In fact, some might consider it sparse — I’ve seen multiple reviews that complain the movie doesn’t provide much backstory for the alien invades. To me, that’s a feature, not a bug. I don’t need more backstorry. In fact, adding more backstory would rob the movie of its power. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best.
