I heard this movie was nearly dialogue-free, and it starred Kaitlyn Dever. CLICK! That’s me hitting play on my Disney+ app.
Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) lives in an isolated farmhouse by herself, designing crafts and passing the day through song. A trip to town shows us that not only does Brynn not have any friends, but she hides from the local sheriff and his wife, indicating an event from the past that Brynn hasn’t dealt with yet. That night, Brynn is fast asleep when an entity lands on her roof, frazzling her power grid, and starting a cat-and-mouse game through the house, as Brynn strives to escape the unknown for her life. Written and directed by Brian Duffield, is No One Will Save You.
This starts out as one of those fun movies to watch with a group of friends. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure where you can shout out your observations in real time and consider how you would handle the situation. Like, why didn’t Brynn go for a knife? Why hasn’t Brynn got shoes on when she gets into the car? Why the hell is Brynn bothering to shower before alerting the world to an alien invasion? You can really learn a lot about your friends through a horror movie like this 😄 But, even alone, I think I learnt a bit about myself. This movie lost me, and lost me hard, around the time Brynn decides not to go to the police with what has just occurred, and simply because, surely, potential alien invasion trumps any human shit we got going on down here. Man, she must’ve done something horrible to her friend in the past to turn away from the authorities in this time of need. But then, nah, because potential alien invasion trumps any human shit we got going on down here! Brynn, I care that you lost your best friend when you were twelve, and I’m eager to find out how, but NOT IN THE FACE OF AN ALIEN INVASION! Priorities! Then, just as Brynn decides her best course of action is to start Home Alone-ing her farmhouse, it’s the aliens who start acting dumb too. Before we see all the flying saucers at the end, I assumed these aliens must’ve taken a drunken detour from their high school graduation, for the way they fumble with Brynn. They keep dramatically contorting and yelling for the viewers at home, but none of them are asking their peers for help; with the girl who has already killed one of them, and should’ve been captured the night before. One tiny bugger literally lets Brynn back into the bathroom just so he can break down the door like ‘Johnny’ from The Shining. They chase her around like lions playing with their food, which led me to a pretty strong conclusion – “oh, this is silly”.
Kaitlyn Dever is never the problem. She carries this movie and does the best she can, but I was crying out for her next movie to give her something more age-appropriate, so she can stand out in the manner I know she’s capable. “C’mon Dever, you’re better than this.” As my mind tried to make sense of this film, I went through a whole why-is-she-even-cast-here? An older woman would make more sense in this role, wouldn’t she? Brynn is a designer, and seems to support herself selling on Etsy. I suppose she could be able to afford a farmhouse; it’s possible she was also left it in a will. It’s just a strange setup, and it got me thinking about mortgage fees and cost-of-living expenses where I think I might normally be invested in the horror. But instead, I was so unenthused by what was happening on screen, I even started waving to the aliens every time their fingers creeped around a corner, and they popped up their generic alien heads 👋 “This is the story of the day a seamstress staved off an alien invasion”, I thought. “Hey ET, does ya mother sew? Bam! Get her to sew that!”
And by the time the ending comes, I think I’ve got the meaning behind what this movie is all about. “No One Will Save You… I mean, what are you waiting for? Aliens to come down and work your troubles away? You’ve got to forgive yourself, and move out into the world confidently.” It’s pretty clever in the way that Brynn kills the first alien, and it reflects the accidental blow to the head her friend got when they were twelve. But could this be last year’s Malignant all over again – with an 82% on rotten tomato and a salacious FOMO, I watched Chris Stuckmann’s review, and read a few comments, to lend me an enrichened perspective. Now I can see that, the movie is not so much about the alien invasion or what Brynn has done, as it is about what the townspeople have done to her – Brynn made a mistake when she was 12 and the townspeople have never let her forget it. We’ve seen characters become outcasts before, and have a glorified masculine response, like the Bee Charmer in Fried Green Tomatoes, but it’s important to recognise how much Brynn’s situation has dampened her spirits while she still strives to find connection. It forced me to look back on the aspects of the movie that didn’t work for me and reconsider why they are here… Brynn goes upstairs to have a shower before reporting the alien attack because she is so preoccupied with being presentable, thinking it her only way back in with the community. And it now makes sense to cast someone who looks as youthful as Dever, to get the point across on the abuse and loneliness she has to shoulder, when she is still so young and should be blossoming. I thought the movie was really bad at intertwining the character’s personal trauma with the catastrophic event, like we see so many movies do, but then we discover it’s never been the movie’s intention to do that, but instead to fold the internal conflict back over the entire movie, recontexualising the drama at play. Solid move, I can respect that.
Initially, I didn’t know if this movie would cut mustard as a Goosebumps episode, but now I could see it as a sixty-minute ‘Twilight Zone episode, experimenting with an idea that isn’t fulfilling for me, and one I would still totally dismiss. I’m allowed to not like things 😤 I’m still having an emotional response to this movie that I’ll reflect upon further 🤔 But it is good to be able to revalue a movie after it’s been dismissed, when new information becomes clear. I think my ultimate conclusion is that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’, and I’m not satisfied that the aliens took over just because a few conceited townspeople were bastards – Midsommar ends with the May Queen contented by her new home, but the movie still frames the situation as horrific, and not a cause for the audience to be happy. Some people may be impressed that this movie is almost completely dialogue-free, and although I enjoyed it for something different, I think the decision was made to keep the secrets where they are until they’re finally revealed – with so much of this movie taking place at Brynn’s home, there wouldn’t have been much need for dialogue anyway.
2.5
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