Netflix Film Review - Bird Box

Malorie (Sandra Bullock) is expecting a child and unsure if she will have a connection to the pending arrival. She is a painter that spends all of her time in her studio not even going out to get groceries as her sister Jessica (Sara Paulson) will do it for her. Her art explores the main subject on her mind connecting with others, which did not happen with the baby's father who was a glorified roommate who is no longer in the picture. Jessica takes her sister to her latest OBNY appointment at the local hospital where upon leaving they encounter a woman banging her head repeatedly against a glass door for no reason. Malorie realizes the disturbance that has been driving tens of thousands to suicide on the other side of the world has come here to her town.

Based on a novel by Josh Malerman Academy Award winning director Susanne Bier helms for Netflix a psychological thriller with a threat that is largely unseen throughout the entire production. The film will undoubtedly draw comparisons to A Quiet Place another psychological thriller about a post- apocalyptic event focused on a group of people surviving in a single location. In A Quiet Place the threat was auditory-based here it is visual.

The narrative jumps back and forth between two time periods. The present where Mallorie and her two children Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair) embark on a dangerous trip down a river to a safe location where there is a thriving community and five years earlier when the chaos first hit after Malorie's hospital visit. In the earlier sequences a group of strangers that alongside Malorie include, Travene Rhodes (Tom), Jackie Weaver (Cheryl), last years breakout performer from Patti Cake$ (Danielle MacDonald) as Olympia plus a wonderful turn as a delicious cross between asshole and prick by John Malkovich as Douglas. The group struggle in a Lord of the Flies style paranoia fuelled battle for leadership as alliances form with Malorie and Tom aligned, Douglas an island onto himself and police academy trainee Lucy (Rosa Salazar) and impending doom predictor Felix (Machine Gun Kelly) thrown together after a catastrophic event in the home.

Sandra Bullock is in about every frame of the film as Malorie, She is quick to recognize the danger, has to fight her way out of the chaos of the initial arrival of the presence to her town which is the best sequence of the film. She delivers her child without proper medical attention then immediately faces a threat to the newborn and herself. Later she forcefully instructs, trains, toughens and leads the kids on a dangerous journey down a rapid filled river in a new normal where you have to be blindfolded anytime you are outside to avoid the unseen entity. The up and coming Travene Rhodes fresh off of successful roles in Moonlight and The Predator is a solid foil to Malorie as Tom. He is thoughtful, caring, less guarded and willing to pause to imagine and dream despite the current situation.

Bird Box is a psychological thriller that does a credible job of getting the audience to care about these characters through Eric Heisserer's screenplay and two opening scenes of terror expressed in completely different manners. The viewer is with the survivors in the home, weary of every new encounter as some who see the entity do not immediately commit suicide but make it their mission for others shielding their eyes to remove the blindfold and see. It's an entertaining tale that leads to a logical conclusion from a fledgling studio that has promised to invest in and deliver even more features in 2019.

*** Out of 4.

Bird Box | Suzanne Bier | U.S.A. | 2018 | 124 Minutes.

Tags: Netflix, Pregnancy, Safe House, Birth, Mother, Survival, Blindfold, Suicide, River, Rapids, Birds, Strangers, Warning.