PLOT: An exiled anxiety-ridden homebody must battle an alien who’s found its way into her home.
REVIEW: If there’s any subgenre that desperately needs a resurgence, it’s the alien invasion film. Vampires and Zombies got their time and we desperately need Aliens to get theirs. I mean, heck, have you seen the news lately? So if anything, No One Will Save You feels very timely. Hell, just two weeks before release, the Mexican government practically put out a promotional video for the film. So in a world where actors can’t promote their movies, it feels oddly kismet. But if you’re expecting anything more than cool alien designs and a great Kaitlyn Dever performance, then you may be disappointed.
No One Will Save You follows Brynn (Dever) as she navigates her life as a homebody. She seems to have a ton of social anxiety. There’s also a lot of mysterious hatred from others in the town regarding her. It’s easy to see why she stays at home so much. So when the aliens come knocking, it’s an invasion in more ways than one. This is where the film is at its strongest. Those moments where Brynn is creeping along the house are beautifully shot and really try to ride the tension. And there are certainly plenty of shots that feel very inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But these scenes often feel fumbled and resort to cheap scares. For every part I was getting into, I found myself more frustrated as the scene commenced.
One of the things I liked the most about the creatures is that there’s no mistaking them for anything but aliens. This is the stereotypical grey design and it really serves to shorten any kind of explanation of them. One look at them and we know they’re from the stars. And while so many films want to be original with their design, it often just looks like some large bug. So it’s nice to see the design that is so synonymous with aliens. I liked the moral grey area that they reside in. There were moments when I wasn’t even sure if Brynn even had anything to be afraid of.
And the subtle differences between them were quite enjoyable (the Daddy Long Legs being a key standout). The CGI is also pretty impressive in most cases. The aliens are in it a lot more than you’d think, so it really needed to hold up to scrutiny and I think they do a good job. Of course, they’re also very smart to film the aliens at night, so they can hide a bit of the budget with that.
The biggest issue I had with the film is the whole revelation of what Brynn did to deserve the town’s ire. It makes her extremely unlikeable and I question how well this film would hold up on rewatches because of it. It’s also baffling as to why they would even make such a strange character choice with her. It doesn’t really add to the story and only serves to show how she was “exiled” from the community. But that could have been done through much less extreme measures. The excessive nature almost makes the whole series of events unintentionally funny.
In the end, I really wasn’t sure what to make of No One Will Save You and I think a lot of that has to do with the film itself not really knowing what it wants to be. The entire plotline with Brynn’s best friend Maude doesn’t really serve any positive purpose. If anything it just adds a wrinkle that kind of stains the movie. Though I will give credit to the massive balls it has for some of its story points, ultimately it just doesn’t come together. Come for the aliens, stay for Kaitlyn Dever and her wonderful performance. But I can’t imagine this is one many will be remembering in a year’s time.
NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU IS STREAMING ON HULU ON SEPTEMBER 22ND, 2023.