NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU (2023) tells the story of a young man struggling to stay alive during an alien invasion. Novel for its almost non-existent dialogue and reliance on physical performance, the movie is creepy good fun, though the feels it aimed missed in my case.
Mourning her mother’s passing, Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) otherwise lives a seemingly idyllic life in a house near a small town, taking pleasure in the living things, though it’s clear she’s grieving something far more than her recent loss, something deep in her past. We find out the town shuns her for some horrible past incident, but soon this will be the least of her problems as aliens invade. What starts as a home invasion escalates to become much more, resulting in deepening isolation and an ever-increasing struggle for survival.
The film is pretty remarkable in that there is pretty much only a single discernible line of dialogue. Otherwise, Dever carries the performance by trying to outsmart the aliens, run, or fight back any way she can. As for the aliens, they stole the show for me. As they’re fun to discover, I’ll say little about them except that there are several types, which really amped up the weirdness and threat, and as familiar as some looked from UFO lore, they definitely come across as alien and quirky.
With no dialogue and with Brynn constantly fighting to survive without any real safe place being available as a goal, the movie does sag a bit in the middle even if it doesn’t actually lag. The last act reveals why Brynn was so isolated and what she’s carried with her ever since, but while it’s well done, by then, the emotions this was supposed to generate didn’t really happen for me. Both the alien invasion and Brynn’s story tie together in an ending that felt for me kind of forced into what the director wanted more than what the story seemed to want.
These gentle criticisms aside, I liked NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU for its overall approach, creepy set-pieces, weird aliens, and overall feel. Overall, I thought it was pretty well done and worth the watch.
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