The article contains discussions about suicide.
Summary
A Quiet Place: Day Onedirector Michael Sarnoski explains how Sam’s (Lupita Nyong’o) fate compares to Lee Abbott’s (John Krasinski) in the original movie. The Sarnoski-helmed film serves as a prequel toA Quiet Placeand its sequel. While the first two films follow the Abbott family as they adjust to life in a post-apocalyptic world following an alien invasion, the prequel follows Sam and Eric (Joseph Quinn) navigating the very onset of the invasion. Both the original film and the prequel end in major deaths, but the franchise manages to differentiate them.
In an interview withVariety, Sarnoski discussed how Sam’s fate inA Quiet Place: Day Onewas similar to and different from Abbott’s fate. The director admitted that thefates are similar as both characters essentially take their own lives, but the difference lies in their reasoning. As the filmmaker explains, Abbott makes a beautiful sacrifice to save his children, but in the prequel,Sam sacrifices herself to the aliens to feel in control of her fate. As a result, both have beautiful and similar fates, but each also manages to stand on its own. Check out Sarnoski’s statement below:
We definitely talked about how, on paper, this is two characters that are committing suicide. It’s just for very different reasons. That scene with John is beautiful — that he sacrifices himself for his kids. There was something fun about doing something similar, but purely for yourself and your own agency, and something that you’ve discovered in yourself. Doing a sacrificial death at the end, that might have stepped on the toes of the first one a little more, but Sam finds it so much in her own way that it has a different resonance. Both, I hope, are beautiful, but I like to think that it rings on its own.
How A Quiet Place: Day One Pulls Off Its Bold Final Death
Sam Was Finally Fulfilled.
Instead,A Quiet Place: Day Oneending drives home its theme of individuals taking control of their lives by letting Sam, rather than illness or aliens, determine when and how she dies.
Given that A Quiet Placealready utilized the concept of someone giving themselves up to the aliens, revisiting that concept inA Quiet Place: Day Onewas risky. However, the reasoning wasn’t the only thing that differentiated Sam and Abbott’s deaths, as their stories are on completely opposite paths from the onset. In the original movie, Abbott’s mission is to survive with his family, whileSam doesn’t have that urgent motivation to survive because she’s terminally ill. Hence,A Quiet Place: Day Onecharactersimply decides to get pizza instead of trying to escape the city.
Why Sam Wants Pizza So Badly In A Quiet Place: Day One
A Quiet Place: Day One is a compelling horror movie with an unusual mission for the leading character Sam, whose only desire in life is to get pizza.
When Sam meets Eric inA Quiet Place: Day One, and he decides to accompany her for pizza, it initially seems like the movie is building up for Sam to meet the same fate as Lee. Viewers feel like they can predict Sam sacrificing herself so that Eric and her cat make it to safety. Although she ultimately convinces him to leave the city without her,Sam stops short of sacrificing herself for Eric. While she’s willing to take risks and distract the aliens so he can escape, she doesn’t take it further than that.
Once Eric escapes, Sam is alone but with a newfound perspective. She feels like she learned to live and stop letting her illness rule her life. However,A Quiet Place: Day Onealways remains realistic that Sam is terminally ill, and with the world in chaos, her passing is inevitable. It could have let viewers assume she passed sometime after the movie. Instead,A Quiet Place: Day Oneendingdrives home its theme of individuals taking control of their lives by letting Sam, rather than illness or aliens, determine when and how she dies.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Cast
A Quiet Place: Day One is a spin-off of the A Quiet Place franchise conceived by John Krasinski. The film is set at the beginning of the invasion as humanity scrambles to survive, before the events of the original film, with Lupita Nyong’O leading the cast, directed by Michael Sarnoski.
