Capsule Review: No One Will Save You (2023)

It’s A Quiet Place redux in No One Will Save You, utilising the same elements of silence and alien invasion. Except for writer-director Brian Duffield does them in a distinctly minimalist style. Here, he embraces the power of silence by stripping down the dialogue. The protagonist, played by Kaitlyn Dever as Brynn, barely speaks a word throughout the movie.

We learn that she lives like a hermit in her childhood home far from the small town of Mill River. She enjoys the solitude as we see her spending the time dancing and doing other stuff like collecting dollhouses. But there’s something odd about the way people look at her. What has she done that the Mill River townsfolk treat her like a pariah? The movie doesn’t give you a direct answer. Even the subsequent backstory is kept to a bare minimum as Duffield only feeds us on a need-to-know basis.

Such a storytelling decision may come across as a gimmick. But it does work in Duffield’s favour. The lack of dialogue and eschewing traditional narrative structure allows him to play around with visual storytelling. This is particularly evident with the heavy use of sound such as background noises. Not to mention it reflects Brynn’s solitary life and it fits the purpose of the title even better when the aliens invaded her home one night.

It’s just too bad the ensuing cat-and-mouse chase between Brynn and the aliens in and out of the house lacks a certain gusto. Duffield’s direction feels pedestrian in the action department, even though the movie still deserves praise for Joseph Trapanese’s riveting score alongside Aaron Morton’s moodily nighttime cinematography and better-than-average special effects, particularly the surprisingly old-school alien design. At least, for the latter, it works reasonably well for a movie intended for a streaming release.

No One Will Save You also benefits from Dever’s engaging one-woman show. It’s hard not to sympathise with her plight. She’s already living in isolation with no one to talk to. The unexpected alien invasion that intruded on her comfort zone — Brynn’s childhood home, that is — forces her to face the ordeal all by herself. Her predominantly dialogue-free performance is impressive since she has to rely on her expressions and body gestures to do the acting. Not an easy task but she certainly rises to the challenge.

Beyond its home-invasion thriller and alien-centric sci-fi tropes, Duffield made a gradual bold choice diverting his plot into an unexpected direction. The direction in question can be a turn-off for (most) viewers looking for a classic last-woman-standing showdown of sorts. Let’s just say it has to do with the metaphorical subtext behind the alien invasion and the extraterrestrial beings’ somewhat sole attention on Brynn. Themes of grief, guilt and trauma are subtly added here, giving us a hint of what Brynn has been through.

No One Will Save You only marks the second time Duffield directed a feature film (his first one was Spontaneous back in 2020). But despite some shortcomings, he has a knack for subverting the expectations of how we usually view a home-invasion thriller or an alien-invasion sci-fi movie.

No One Will Save You is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.