Bird Box is a 2018 thriller about a woman and a pair of children who are blindfolded and make their way through a dystopian setting.
There’s a traceable constant in recent horror/thrillers where the same theme is painted in different colors, which I suppose is a fair description of most genres, though the end-of-the-world bend in movies has had its own unique penchant for redress. From 28 Days Later to A Quiet Place, our near end has been given a whole host of smart deviations that not only entertain, but make us think. Now comes Susanne Bier‘s newest film Bird Box, another extinction-level driven story that is certainly strange and even absurd but grounded by it commitment and powerful attachment to a few of its characters.
After a brief introduction that puts the central story in motion, we meet Malorie (Sandra Bullock), a talented but somewhat cynical artist who is also pregnant. It’s got her in a tailspin, unsure if she wants to keep the baby, though the time for thinking about it are nearing an end. She’s got her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson) in support, but one day at the hospital for a final checkout, things take a turn. Reports of a string of mass suicides in other parts of the world are now here in the United States, and suddenly, the city is in chaos as most everyone careens into madness. Malorie manages to escape and finds refuge in a home with a few other survivors, including Douglas (John Malkovich), eventually realizing that there are unseen creatures able to control the minds of those that ‘see’ them. Holed up, the group stays alive and try to find a way to keep it that way.
Based on the book by Josh Malerman, the film starts out with an impressive run at apocalyptic fervor before closing in on the claustrophobic walls of the packed house, stuffed with a checklist of generic characters who fill in the gaps with exposition and theories, holding our hands in explaining what is potentially happening. These moments are all flashbacks spun from the opening salvo that sees a concrete sturdy Malorie, clearly months into the disaster and hardened by it, in control of two very young children, all blindfolded and heading down river with birds in a box. You can guess why.
It’s a clever setup and has more than its fair share of opportunities for suspense, the large cast bound together in a common cause much like those in Frank Darabont‘s 2007 The Mist, where personalities clash under the mounting leadership of a few opposing options for survival. That puts Bullock at the forefront, steely-eyed and pragmatic, the character’s motherly instincts given a sharper edge that makes for a nice change of pace for the actress.
Where the movie does best is when it gets out of the house, where we discover that not all affected by the incident die, some becoming turned into preachers of sort, looking to spread the ‘word’ per se of the benefits of ‘seeing.’ Time on the river often makes for the movie’s best moments. What’s more, back in the house, the group needs to find food, and that means leaving the house, culminating in a tricky GPS-guided drive to the local grocery store.
It’s these action scenes that propel the story with Bier handling these large scale moments very well. However, it’s the relationship between Malorie and fellow survivalist Tom (Trevante Rhodes) that generates the strongest emotional bond, though a few others are just too obvious, including over-the-top Malkovich.
Bird Box is an effective thriller with ample blood and horror and plenty of well-earned suspense, made even better by its terrific turn from Bullock. It tosses a lot at us and becomes unstable several times throughout its run, though always finds its footing again, making it a solid thriller well worth your time.