No One Will Save You: More Like No One Will Talk to You

By John Kirk

Rating: C-

Aliens are jerks but humanity is only slightly better off without them.

That seems to be the take-away from director Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You, a described psychological thriller in which a reclusive young woman with a traumatic past living in a small town is confronted by alien invaders.

Strange as it may seem, it also appears that she has a mindset that is set about 30 years ago, when cell phones are rare, rotary phones are still active, and it’s possible for a twenty-something to own her own home on a spacious, rural property.

When we first meet Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), she is beginning her apparently idyllic day of trying on Hobby Holly-inspired dresses, sewing them, and sending them off in the mail. She is isolated and conscientiously ignored by the citizens of the nearby town. She has a collection of doll house miniatures to occupy her time. She cooks and eats her meals in the splendid isolation of her fairy-tale, pond-sided cottage in the woods.

Even the local mailman seems to despise her as he three-points her packages next to her mailbox.

We see Brynn visit the grave of her mother, avoiding other cemetery visitors, including the local sheriff and his wife as they visit their daughter, Brynn’s former childhood friend, Maude.

There’s an obvious backstory here, but we learn nothing about it, frustrated by the lack of dialogue in the film.

However, before we can ponder why that might be, the evening arrives and late at night, Brynn receives a frightening extra-terrestrial visitor who seems intent on exploring her house. This is the opening salvo in a series of violent confrontations in which young and naïve Brynn has to defend herself from the unwanted intentions of the intimidating and telekinetic alien.

The conspicuous choice of creating a film with absolutely no dialogue may seem edgy, but it also contributes to the obfuscation of the intentions of the alien invaders. No dialogue, the epiglottal click-clacks that pass for alien speech — not even miming — all contribute to a complete lack of understanding about what exactly the aliens want.

Of course, because they’re aliens. But what really gets in the way of fully enjoying this film is the absence of Brynn’s background. When she tries to go to the local police station, she encounters the sheriff and his wife who she was avoiding beforehand.

She is greeted by expressions of shock and a hurl of spittle from the wife who clearly has no love for the beleaguered Brynn. When no one in the police station rises to her aid, we get the distinct impression that whatever Brynn did was serious enough to warrant the title of the film. Clearly, no one is coming to save her.

There is a distinct tug-of-war between trying to understand Brynn’s motivations and those of the alien invaders. In fact, it’s difficult to discern who you dislike more: the provincial and regretful Brynn, still nursing the trauma of the terrible crime she committed in the past or the inexplicable aliens who seem to simply want to mess up the town and its people with their minds.

The problem with this film is that the absence of dialogue shouldn’t also equate to the absence of communication. While the aliens seem fascinated by Brynn’s photographs and memories of her past, the significance isn’t made clear.

Instead, we see an arguably imaginative battle between Brynn and the invaders that sees creative use of household and handicraft items (scissors, candle lighters, and even saucepans with boiled water) but it’s all rendered pointless because Brynn’s struggle isn’t properly valued. Plus, the title of the film is No One Will Save You.

Bit of a disappointing spoiler in the title there, folks.

The film capitalizes on the conflict between the protagonist and the aliens, but at the end all of this is rendered moot by the unsatisfying resolution and the fact that the aliens, who are seemingly jerks, actually get their asses handed to them by this young woman who specializes in handicrafts.

Give Brynn credit, she knows how to handle a miniaturized piece of doll furniture with a pointy, if tinkly belled, end. Of all the film, I have to say, this is the bit that actually gave me the most amount of enjoyment.

But, like its other disappointing and self-defeating elements, this is also devalued by the fact that it doesn’t matter and that’s a shame. The film has a lot of promise, but in the end, it simply just doesn’t deliver.

No One Will Save You. Directed by Brian Duffield. Starring Kaitlyn Dever. On Disney+ September 22.