Film Analysis - Bird Box

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2019)

A fair warning to all reading after this point, please go watch the movie and then come back to read this, as it contains major spoilers, film dissection, a thorough analysis and other things such as the breakdown of characters and monsters of the film, which might ruin your watching experience.
Bird Box (2018) is a movie adapted by the book of the same name starring Sandra Bullock( Gravity, Oceans Eight ) in the lead role with other stars which include T,revante Rhodes, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, Danielle Macdonald, Lil Rel Howery, Tom Hollander, BD Wong, Sarah Paulson, Machine Gun Kelly AKA Colson Baker, and John Malkovich and is directed by Susanne Bier ( Serena. Love is all you need ).
This film majorly falls under the category of Drama with a touch of Sci-Fi. Though IMDB adds Horror as a genre or maybe a sub-genre there is no horror element to the movie for the viewers, but the characters in the movie go through trauma, psychological imbalance, and fear for the whole run-time.
The plot-line of the movie is set in the current time period. The movie starts off with a dramatic scene between Malorie(Sandra Bullock) and 2 kids who are told not to open their blindfold once they start the journey and then jumps back in the timeline with Malorie and her sister in their apartment.
The plot structure is basically 2 different timelines shown to the viewer one after the other(jumping from present to past(5years) then back to present(with a few shots being hours earlier of the present timeline) and these plots meet together in the final act of the movie. Although I felt the plotline to be too linear and predictable, it is not what the movie is all about. Let us understand where the movie shines and where it doesn't!
Firstly our main character, Malorie, goes through various troubles which get intertwined in each other and eventually get resolved. In the beginning, Malorie is all about herself, avoids public places, tends to live alone and enjoys her own company. She is pregnant with a child and still feels that she won't have any connection or emotional bond with the child once it is born. This is the direct behavioral response due to her boyfriend leaving her in the middle of the baby crisis. Near the end of the first act of the past timeline, she makes a friend for the first time after her boyfriend incident and also trusts another guy to be close with her.
During the second act of the present timeline, there is still no bond between the kids and Malorie. It feels like she has given up on hope and just surviving for the sake of it. The final act of the present timeline, a major transformation in Malorie sets into motion. The decision of choosing which child will guide her during the raging river section makes a huge change in her character. She understands what it is to have a child, what a mother-child bond is, and also keeping a promise made to an old friend.
In the climax of the movie, she opens up completely to the girl which even though she didn't give birth to, has an equal place in her heart just like the boy has. This, for me, was a very powerful scene as it was not expected and for a moment, I thought that this was the end of the girl, but she comes back safely to her.
Even though there are 2 connected plots running simultaneously, one can easily keep up with the time period as there are no sudden jumps and cuts. The suspense and the climax were a slight disappointment for me as it fails to deliver with the much-anticipated intensity and emotions. It still keeps us on the toes when Malorie and the kids enter into the safe zone, it feels for some moments that this place too is taken over by the monster and the people their still seem suspicious at the start.
The Characterization of the main characters is well-defined thanks to the superb performance by the cast. Malorie's transformation is beautifully shown through her dialogue and the way she speaks with the kids in the later point in the movie as compared to the beginning. The kids are somewhat like dolls, very little dialogues, very tiny contribution the main plot and very few expressions, but there was point where the girl showed major fear, disbelief and hopelessness towards the mother through her face( This takes place when she says one of them has to open the blindfold guide her in the river) . I loved her expressions, on point I would say! Tom Hollander gave an amazing performance making us believe that he was a good guy, I was like, "hell yeah" one more to the party. But hey, they forgot to check his bag! I felt really sad when Charlie takes one for the team and sacrifices himself, feels like I won't be able to survive in the apocalypse because of being too soft and nerdy!
Now let's talk about the elephant in the room! Yes, The monster, entity, devil, ghost, demon or whatever you want to call it. We never really know what it is, its shape, size, color, form, is it human-like or monster like, how big it is or can it take whatever shape it likes because it was never really shown in the movie. All we know is if you see at him you are either dead meat or hypnotized by it. Also, they seem to be in huge numbers, looking at the presence of them lie from continent to continent. As Charlie says, the entity can take the form of your worst fears and nightmares. We can see multiple drawings made by Gary, but they are through his eyes. Alternatively, many of them see dead ones or hear them so it can take a human form also. These things also seem to influence you through the digital medium, as seeing it from the camera also affects you. It seems the entity controls only those who are bad human beings and kills the one who are good. This opens up to questions like which side Douglas and Malorie would have gone to? Would the pre-transformed Malorie be controlled and the post-transformed Malorie be given a highway to heaven ??
Analyzing all of this, I feel like we have some kind of powerful shapeshifter with hypnotic and telekinesis powers. Notice that whatever destruction, damage, chaos it has brought upon the Bird Box Universe (let's call it that!) is through humans, as he/she/it has not touched a single thing. I was a little upset that they did not explore the entity much, there was like 2-3 minutes of screentime given to that invisible thing.
This can also mean the director wants to show us that even you are blindfolded. You cannot see it because you are traveling alongside Malorie and are going through the same situations as she is. A few places during the film we can see leaves moving as if something has a force field and is walking but notice that a huge emphasis has been given to the rustling of leaves and air and some kind of eerie silence. This also implies that you are seeing and hearing the world through Malorie or seeing the imagination of what it is, as she is unknown to what exactly is out there. This may be one reason why we do not see the entity.
There are few plot holes, unsolved mysteries in the movie such as - Can you look at footage of the creature which was preshot as the person filming it has its fear shown not the fear you have. How did the bird box survive the boat crash, how did the girl come to the shore with the bell and bird-box so intact from those ravaging waters? Also, they did not get any reception in their phones but the GPS was still working.
Let's talk about some of the technical aspects of the film. Let's start with Audio. I felt the soundtrack could have been more powerful and more intense during certain situations. Thinking about recently watched movies with similar tone and setting, "A Quiet Place" always comes up in terms of sound design and building up the tension. The growling noise used at some places felt too much of an asset flipping. Overall, not too much impressed by the sound.
Camera was well established for each shot. There were a few scenes which stood out really well such as the river scenes and the forest scenes. But apart from that nothing else stood out. The camera felt unused in a few scenes and would have been impressive with an extreme close up shot, entity POV and tracking shots. Scenes were well setup through extreme long shots in the latter half of the movie depicting were exactly the characters are.
Lighting during the river scenes was impressive, it gave that dark empty feeling. Forest scenes should have been much darker, with low key lighting and darker shadows. Overall missed an opportunity to play with lighting also.
Editing was butter smooth, not much of short scenes and cuts. The transition from present to past and vice versa was pretty well done. The rhythm of the movie keeps you from thinking about what is going to come next. Pace of the movie seems to pick up really quickly and we can see a lot happening from the first 5 mins till the last moment. This was also a good thing as it engages the viewer and does not bore them even though some things are predictable.
The Visual Effects in the movie were subtle but nicely done. The scene such entity presence through the force field, river scenes. Maybe they had to do a lot of cleanup as shooting with a blindfold on would have taken up a lot of guides, chroma scenes, and other markers. Overall well-done un-noticeable VFX, which is the best VFX!
I enjoyed the film, it held me in one place until the very end! I wrote the review first thing after watching the movie so that I avoid any major outside source influencing my writing.
Do have any interesting theory? Any major plot details or plot holes I missed Let me know what are your thoughts. If you disagree with me on anything, do let me know!
Cheers!!