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Film: No One Will Save You
Year: 2023
Director: Brian Duffield
Writer: Brian Duffield
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Elizabeth Kaluev and Zack Duhame
Review:
This was a movie that I remember hitting Hulu. The poster looked interesting. It jumped up on my list of movies to watch for 2023 as I’m preparing my end of year list due to that buzz. There were things that I heard about it from other podcasters so I was intrigued to see where I’d sit with it.
Synopsis: an exiled anxiety-ridden homebody must battle an alien who’s found its way into her home.
Now the young woman from the synopsis is Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever). We start by seeing her getting ready and she’s fretting. I get the idea that she makes clothes and it seems like she is prepping to mail off a dress. This shows us that she lives in the middle of nowhere. We then get a day in her life. She goes to the grave of her mother to hang out. There is a funeral so she sneaks off. We see that she waves to a guy and he ignores her. She also hides from a police officer and his wife. What we’ll learn here is that they’re the parents to her best friend. Her friend is Maude (Dari Lynn Griffin). Her mother is Mrs. Collins (Geraldine Singer) and her father is police chief Collins (Dane Rhodes).
Brynn then goes home where she puts on a record, teaches herself how to dance, has wine and makes dinner. Someone tries to call and she picks up the phone but hangs up without seeing who it is. We then see that she eats alone. There is also an interesting scene where a birdhouse gets delivered. The mail carrier, played by Zack Duhame, kicks the box into the area as he drops it off. Brynn doesn’t seem too bothered by this.
Everything then changes that night. Her power kicks on before turning off. An alien then enters her home. Brynn wakes up and tries to sneak around. She then comes face to face with this otherworldly creature and fights back. This is just the beginning though. It appears there’s an invasion started. There could be more to what is happening and not everything is as it seems.
That should be good to introduce the characters and enough of a recap. Where I want to start is that this is an interesting movie. We start with getting a good look of the lead character, Brynn. I do think that Dever does a solid job at bringing this character to life. We see that she is talented, but we also see that she is hiding from society. Part of this I think is in her head. Something happened between her and Maude. She blames herself for it. Mrs. Collins also blames her. Mr. Collins seems to be sad, but I get the idea that he’s moved on. This is something that most everyone can connect with or at least, understand. That worked for me.
Aspects of this are introduced as well as others as this alien invasion happens. What I like is that at first, it just shows it as a home invasion where Brynn fights back. The next day when she goes for help, she learns that this is a much larger scale. We see these dark, ominous clouds roll in and others have been taken over. There is an even more isolated feel here for Brynn. She seems like the only one who hasn’t been taken over. I get the commentary here being that due to her living where she does and shutting out the rest of society, they’ve now shut her out. She’s been left behind. That causes that horrible feeling of isolation even more. Again, Devers does a great job of showing us this.
I’m not going to spoil this, but an issue people have is with the ending. This also could just be an allegory as well. The title of the movie plays in. No one is going to save you from yourself is what I think it is getting at. If you are closing off, then what results from it is going to be your fault. Now Mrs. Collins spits in Brynn’s face. You can’t change her mind over how she feels about what happened to her daughter. Everyone else though, falls on Brynn to build and fix those relationships. There is a question here as well if what happens with the aliens is real or not. With one viewing, I still take it that they are. It is also just a bigger allegory of what I’ve laid out here.
Next then should be the rest of the actors. Dever, as I said, was great there. Loved how she took on this character and everything that is through at her. She doesn’t talk a lot, but it is through her facial expressions and body language. Duhame is solid as this mail carrier who becomes a villain. There is something off with him in the beginning and where it goes from there was good. Singer and Rhodes are good as the parents of Maude. I like what they do with flashbacks for Elizabeth Kaluev who is young Brynn. There’s also Lauren L. Murray as Brynn’s mother. We also get Evangeline Rose as young Maude and Griffin with the adult. I’m not seeing anyone credited as the alien so that much been CGI. I’ll get that next. Other than that, the cast here was fine to push Brynn where she ends up.
All that is left is filmmaking. I like what they do with the cinematography. The set up of the shots and framing was good to build that isolated feel for Brynn. Part of it is where her house is found. We also focus on here to help there as well. This does use CGI with the aliens and the clouds in the sky. That worked for me. Going practical would get higher marks, but this doesn’t ruin it. I’d also say that the soundtrack fit what was needed. There’s a recurring song that was solid.
In conclusion, I didn’t dislike this like others did. Part of it I think was that I saw this a bit differently. There is an interesting look at depression and grief. Dever has a good performance as our lead. The rest of the cast push her to where she ends up. Using this backdrop of an alien invasion to show what Brynn is going through was good. This is well made. The cinematography and framing carrying it there. Even though this uses CGI, I still think how it looks was good. This is one that I’ll need to revisit now to see if I missed anything, but I still enjoyed what this was conveying and it was a solid watch.
My Rating: 7 out of 10