Bird Box feels like Netflix’s response to not producing A Quiet Place. I can see the board meeting now: “Why can’t we make it, like, sight is bad instead?” “Done. Love it.” “Oh, and get Sandy Bullock.” “Check and mate!” Bird Box isn’t the tense fraught near masterpiece that A Quiet Place was, but it is really scary, and Bullock covers some of the gaps left by the screenplay.
Bird Box is essentially a story about Malorie (Bullock). She starts out Bird Box as a shy loner, particularly regretful about the pregnancy she’s currently in the middle of, coaxed by her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson). Then, out of the blue, this malevolent force descends on Earth, making people live out their worst possible existence, making them choose suicide over this deep sadness, when they see the creature. Malorie avoids direct eyesight, so she barricades herself in a mansion with Tom (Trevante Rhodes), Douglas (John Malkovich) and the also pregnant Olympia (Danielle Macdonald), among others. The group survives there as long as they can, until they are forced to move out, where, years later, circumstances leave Malorie alone with 2 kids she calls Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair). Malorie gets a message from a place claiming to be safe from the creatures; however, getting to the sanctuary requires a treacherous expedition via a river. Blindfolded. With 2 kids. And innumerable creatures hoping you remove your blindfold to end your life.
Bird Box is two movies woven into one: a claustrophobic “trapped in the house” movie, and a perilous horror quest movie. The creative team was probably trying to be faithful to the source material, keeping the material to one film. However, there’s enough stuff to cover that I would argue you could make 2 films. As a result, one of the films gets shortchanged: in this case, it’s the quest part. I’m guessing the filmmakers wanted to not tell a linear story, and parallel the present with the past, probably because of the terrifying opening lines of the movie: where Malorie is telling her kids about this terrifying journey they’re going on, and the rules they must follow or they’ll die. It does set up the stakes of the world pretty fast, that is true. However, I would argue it then undercuts a significant portion of the tension in the past when we cut to a “5 years earlier” graphic, knowing Malorie is going to survive her ordeals. The descent of the creatures is just as scary as Malorie’s speech: watching people’s eyes go blood red and forcing them to do something suicidal. It’s horrifying to watch. Even if we don’t see anything, we still see the terrifying consequences. The house material gives us interesting characters playing horror archetypes: survivalist asshole, conspiracy theorist, unexpected love interest, wide eyed innocent, mole, etc. But when people like John Malkovich, Trevante Rhodes, and Jackie Weaver are inhabiting these people, they can’t help but transform these types into characters we invest in and are terrified to learn the fates of. The scenes from the past also do the world building, setting up the new horrors and terrors awaiting Malorie and her companions once they choose to venture outside the mansion. Because of cramming 2 movies into one, the fallout of the past feels rushed and a little too convenient, while the scenes on the river don’t give us enough time with the kids to care as much about them as we should.
Despite some of the flaws in the storytelling. Sandra Bullock is here to remind you why she’s one of the best. Early on, Bullock plays Maloire as someone who’s been wronged by the world, so she chooses isolation and cynicism to dominate her existence. Once “The Problem” descends on her and she holes up in the mansion, we see the true nature of who she is, slowly. We learn she’s got more life skills than a California girl like herself should have, able to use weapons and fix things. In addition, she’s still got an empathetic heart, caring for poor Olympia who’s completely unprepared for horrors like these. Bullock plays these new shades of her personality while still maintaining a guarded survivalist mentality, afraid to get too close to any of these people so she can move on whenever she has to. However, when the kids come, we see some of those walls slowly come down, as she has to learn to be a mother, something she has never wanted to do before. All of these changes feel completely organic and natural, largely thanks to Bullock’s ability to capture nuance in her performance, and act without using her eyes, more difficult than it sounds.
As simple as “It’s like A Quiet Place, but without sight instead of sound” is to describe Bird Box, that description works. Sandra Bullock ushers us through the scary scenario of doing everything without the blessing of sight, which can betray you into killing yourself. So, you know, another lovely Christmas movie from Netflix about family values!