In “Bird Box,” Sandra Bullock plays a single mom (Malorie) trying to save her kid’s lives after mysterious forces invade Earth and causes people to kill themselves. Survivors must wear blindfolds or be exposed to supernatural entities (or monsters) that embody their deepest fears and drive them to suicide. Directed by Susanne Bier, this apocalyptic horror film , is based on a novel by Josh Malerman. Netflix claimed ‘Bird Box’ was watched by more than forty-five million subscribers, a record of sorts.
The premise of the movie is pretty unique, and it starts of well. It works here and there with a few thrills, but overall leaves you unsatisfied. You cannot complain much about the script in a horror set-up but it could have been better. The cast makes it up for the flaws in the script and engages you for most part, making it a watchable fare.
Birds being used as a way to foretell the onset of the monsters like dogs for ghosts is a pretty neat trick. It does remind you of the water ripple in ‘Jurassic Park’ and the associated music. The kids combination just like in ‘Jurassic Park’ and a not-so-good parent taking them to safety, is also a similar theme from the dinosaur movie.
Unlike ‘Jurassic Park’ you never to get to see the dinosaur, but you do bump into infected individuals every now and then. In ‘Bird Box’ because the whole world is infected or you are unaware whether it is infected or not, Malorie’s only hope is to follow the radio message and cross the river to safety. An effort similar to the Meryl Streep movie ‘The River wild’. The movie ends a bit like Hitchcock film ‘The Birds’, with birds returning to their habitat (birds were human’s foes in that movie though), and leaving many loose ends, keeping the possibility open for a sequel.
Guess the popular themes of apocalyptic world, escape from monsters, bad parent to good parent, race to survival, world wide calamity etc and the familiarity offered by popular actors, gave the movie its initial draw. Throw in the social marketing of Netflix, it is highly unlikely that anyone interested remotely in these themes would miss it. The movie reportedly made with a budget of USD19mn is a tad low on production values, but it is enough to make the story believable.
Tailpiece from ‘The NewYorker’
Netflix notoriously doesn’t, in general, report viewership numbers. Yet it couldn’t resist crowing that more than forty-five million subscribers watched “Bird Box” in its first week online. How would it have done in a traditional wide theatrical release? Would it have taken in four hundred million dollars at the box-office in its first week alone? I suspect that its viewership depends upon its low barrier to entry. Even just the extraordinary cast, which also includes John Malkovich, Jacki Weaver, Lil Rel Howery, and Sarah Paulson, is good enough to watch for free. Unfortunately, “Bird Box” puts these performers through familiar paces, in roles of such tight typecasting that they seem like recurring characters in an extended TV series—which may also be part of the secret to the film’s Netflix success- New Yorker
Related Links
“Bird Box,” Reviewed: An Apocalypse Built for Netflix