Silent Night Offers a Downbeat Blend of Doomsday and Christmas

There are tons of flicks about people making an attempt to barter the post-apocalypse. Less widespread are movies about folks counting down till the tip of the world—although they actually exist, with approaches as assorted as Roland Emmerich’s huge, loud catastrophe flick 2012 and Lars von Trier’s pensive, nihilistic Melancholia. Writer-director Camille Griffin’s Silent Night extra resembles the latter, although it’s bought its personal strategy to placing a bunch of rich and delightful folks into the bleakest state of affairs possible.

It’s additionally a Christmas-themed film, because the title suggests, and it begins off with the breezy vitality of British vacation motion pictures which have come earlier than—a resemblance bolstered by the presence of Love Actually’s Keira Knightley. She leads the ensemble as Nell, spouse of Simon (A Discovery of Witches’ Matthew Goode), mom of three boys, and chipper Christmas Eve hostess for a gaggle of shut pals and their companions. (The remainder of the wonderful solid contains Malignant’s Annabelle Wallis as Sandra, A Series of Unfortunate Events’ Lucy Punch as Bella, The Good Place’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Alex, His House’s Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù as James, Yoga Hosers’ Lily-Rose Depp as Sophie, and younger Jojo Rabbit breakout Roman Griffin Davis, who’s additionally the son of the writer-director, as Art).

Early on, we begin to get little hints that there’s extra to this well-heeled gathering than the standard festive-season spectrum of presents, carols, sweets, micro-aggressions among the many adults, and full-on bratty bickering between the youngsters. Simon units the resident chickens free as a result of “it’s kinder if the foxes get them first.” Sandra smugly admits she spent her daughter’s school tuition cash on her glamorous costume and sneakers. James reminds Nell, as she sighs about getting previous, that, nicely—they have been getting previous. But now, issues are completely different.

Silent Night doesn’t make us wait to search out out what all this foreshadowing means, although our rationalization of the looming apocalypse comes from the youngsters, which implies we get a garbled interpretation of what’s occurring. Apparently, the Earth has gathered all air pollution right into a lethal poison cloud that’s slowly spreading throughout the planet. Once it’s engulfed, the planet might be uninhabitable for not less than 100 years. The cloud will attain the get together location on Christmas morning. Also, the British authorities has generously equipped each authorized citizen with an “exit pill,” permitting them to die swiftly and painlessly as an alternative of gruesomely choking to dying on poisonous fumes.

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That final truth propels a lot of Silent Night’s drama; most everybody has already resigned themselves to suicide, except for the outspoken Sophie (the lone American within the group, she’s additionally lately discovered that she’s pregnant) and the precocious, suspicious, and more and more conspiracy-minded Art. The mother and father within the group are insistent that “we’re not killing our kids,” however there are emotions of guilt and blame within the air, not simply due to the tablets they’ll be administering to their offspring, however as a result of it’s not less than partially their fault the Earth has been fucked for future generations.

While Silent Night muses over the thorny prospect of curating a extra nice dying to your family members—whereas underlining the truth that not everybody on this planet is ready to strategy doomsday from such a spot of privilege—it additionally provides its characters room to expertise the complete vary of feelings that include dealing with the approaching finish. There are dance events (with on-the-nose songs: “Fame! I’m gonna live forever!”), tearful confessions, screaming arguments, heart-wrenching good-byes, horrible moment-of-truth realizations, and weirdly petty calls for—as a result of what grubby animal swallows a suicide tablet whereas swigging from a lukewarm can of Coke? It will get exhausting and even a bit maudlin because the ticking-clock construction leads us nearer to the tip, and also you begin to understand that you simply don’t actually care concerning the (seemingly inevitable) destiny of Silent Night’s characters. Most of them actually aren’t that likable—except James, who’s conflicted but compassionate, and Alex, who avoids all of the shrill pettiness by tossing her sobriety apart and drowning herself in champagne.

It’s due to Art, who finally ends up carrying the film for probably the most half, that we begin to query if the cloud is admittedly what the federal government says it’s—all proof on the contrary, after all, however the seed of doubt is certainly planted. However, Silent Night is extra invested in chronicling its characters’ private breakdowns than it’s in investigating what might be a broader thriller surrounding its story. There’s an uneasy feeling because the film approaches its grim conclusion—with a little bit twist on the finish that’s both setting the stage for a post-apocalyptic sequel or opening up a yawning plot gap for the sake of 1 huge “gotcha!” final shot. By the time you get there you may be too bummed out to care.

Silent Night arrives December 3 in theaters and on AMC+.

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