2023 has been a long year for movies, but despite all of that, Hulu has not had as large a presence for me as it did last year. Because of this, I checked out what Hulu had to offer, and this brought me to the Hulu original film No One Will Save You. The film follows Brynn, a lonely woman who is living on the edge of her town. One night, her home is visited by extraterrestrial beings, and it very quickly becomes her mission to simply survive the incoming invasion.
With eight spoken lines of dialogue, a plethora of classic sci-fi tropes, and a virtually fat free script, No One Will Save You is yet another sleeper hit of the year. Put on your tin foil hats, tidy your crop circles, and make peace with your creator, because the review will probably contain spoilers.
Proceed with caution if you care, but if not, let us have some fun. I really dig what this movie turned out to be, so there will be quite some positivity throughout, but we have to talk about the bad stuff first.
No One Will Get on With It (Some Negatives)
The pacing of this movie is pretty good. Tension is built properly. Chase sequences are done right. Physical storytelling takes a more interesting front seat over dialogue and conversations unraveling the plot. All of this is fantastic, but this problem suffers from an issue I have with many Sci-Fi movies. It is nothing personal, but I found the beginning to drag a hair.
Granted, this was all before it was clear that this was going to basically be a dialogue free movie. However, I think even with that knowledge on a rewatch it would not help the case. Nothing is boring, but I think a few moments could have been shortened, moved around, cut, or molded into something a little quicker.
Getting acquainted with our protagonist in an invasion movie like this is not the most necessary trait, but if it works then I appreciate it. At the end of this film my appreciation and emotional connectivity for her situation is significantly greater. All of this was further developed by moments that already exist towards the middle of the film. Keep those, but condense the beginning. This is all great stuff, and while I am not really in a rush to get to the aliens, I am not exactly in any position to want to stay here in the beginning much longer.
Aside from the beginning taking just a bit longer than I would have liked, there is not much else to complain about here. My brain needs to hear some dialogue sometimes so there are points I would have liked spoken words. This is my own preference and not enough to really hurt the movie at all.
Kaitlyn Dever in the Hulu original movie No One Will Save You. Image provided courtesy of Hulu and 20th Century Fox Studios.
Alien Invasion, But Make it Awesome
Having a total of eight-ish lines within this entire movie is impressive. My biggest takeaway from everything was how awesome it was to see the little gray alien trope used in a cool way. Sure, there are a few variations with longer legs and other weird designs, but it is still cool. At first, I initially thought it was some weird joke that they were just the stereotyped gray ones, but, like, it does not have to be anything aside from that.
While a creative take on an alien species’ design is always appreciated- it is much easier to digest these events since the design is as simple as possible. Giving them abilities is cool. Extending their fingers and making them long boys is great. Simplicity works more often than not, and it definitely worked here.
Talking Without Speaking
As I have mentioned before, this movie is dialogue free with the exception of about eight lines. Those eight lines could have been reduced to three and that would have been even more impressive. This lack of speaking works really well and never feels like a gimmick. The structure of the story and progression of Brynn’s survival makes sense.
Her loneliness gives her enough reason to avoid speaking. When she is being pursued, who does she talk to then? It makes sense for films like these to try and shoehorn in a side character for the protagonist to speak their kind to. Unfortunately, Brynn has absolutely no one. Fortunately, she does not need anyone and this gives us a more direct focus.
Random Alien Thoughts
There are a few things that I want to give some attention to that I could not find too much of a clean segue into. First off, I like Katilyn Dever and have been watching her work since Season 2 of Justified. She did a good enough job surviving the movie and expressing without speaking. With that said, there is nothing too earth shattering about her performance. Like many of my critiques, this will not heavily damage my overall thoughts on the movie. However it would have been nice to actually feel something.
Kaitlyn Dever in the Hulu original movie No One Will Save You. Image provided courtesy of Hulu and 20th Century Fox Studios.
I was unsure how to feel about the ending but now that some distance has grown- I love it! Movies should not be afraid to make their ends of movies the option that seems silly. SPOILER: Brynn gives in to the aliens but ends up being the only human not controlled by them. That is really funny and becomes sweet.
I would not have been upset if there were a few more minutes of aliens. This goes back a bit to the pacing of the beginning and delaying the aliens. Aliens doing alien stuff is so cool. Why deprive us of that? “Keep them wanting more” or “it is scarier if you do not see the enemy” or whatever you want to call it.
No One Will Save You by Brian Duffield
When I looked this movie up to see who directed this, Google reviews gave this a 2.7 out of 5 stars. That is ludicrous to me. No One Will Save You is a good movie. Sure, this is another reason why Google Reviews are hot flaming trash, but I digress. No One Will Save You is a good movie and a good alien movie. This is fun, quick, intense, a good time, and worth a watch at some point if you have the time. No One Will Save You is available on Hulu now and I give it 7/10.
