Why No One Will Save You is Worth a Watch. Just the smallest, most infinitival scrap of character building sometimes is all it takes to take the simplest of ideas and make it stand out among a crowd of other movies and shows. But first, know this, No One Will Save You has a whole lot more going on than it being a simple closed box, alien, home invasion movie. (Can’t believe I just typed that sentence out… ) Before we get too far into explaining why, let’s let the folks who haven’t seen it yet, watch the trailer… then we’ll let them go so we can get down to brass tacks.
I gotta say, while the alien character designs were a bit hokey, the screenplay on this film was extraordinarily impressive. Shockingly so. So, if you haven’t had a chance yet to see No One Will Save You, head on over to Hulu and check it out. Because, it actually isn’t a movie about aliens… regardless as much as Hulu would like you to believe it is.
Why No One Will Save You is Worth a Watch
Brynn (played by Kaitlyn Dever who was glorious in Dopesick, Beautiful Boy, & Booksmart), a reclusive seamstress dwelling in her childhood home, grapples with the profound loss of her mother and her dearest friend, Maude. To cope with her grief, she immerses herself in the construction of a miniature town within her living room. Brynn’s life is marked by solitude, anxiety, and withdrawal, and a mysterious event from her past has left the entire town seemingly turned against her. (WHAT HAPPENED???)
Before we find out though, one fateful night, Brynn is abruptly awakened by an unwelcome intruder in her home. Realizing that this intruder is not of this world, an alien, Brynn attempts to run for her life. The relentless alien is dogged in its pursuit. Employing telekinetic powers, the alien subdues Brynn, yet in a desperate struggle, she inadvertently uses a shard from her miniature town’s school bell tower to stab the alien in the head and kill it. Ultimately gaining her freedom.
In the aftermath of the alien’s intrusion, Brynn discovers that all electronic devices have been rendered useless. Forced to abandon her car and the alien’s lifeless body, she embarks on a journey into town. Along the way, she encounters scenes of chaos—her neighbor’s ransacked home, an overturned mail van—painting a grim picture of the town’s ordeal.
Attempting to seek refuge at the police station, Brynn encounters the chief of police, his wife, and Maude’s grieving parents. Remember that mysterious event that turned the town against her? Yeah, that. Well, whatever it is that happened, causes Maude’s mother, to spit in her face, and the town’s police to not even hear her out. Aliens or no, the town doesn’t care a single lick about Brynn. Feeling isolated and completely alone, Brynn decides to flee the town. She boards a bus, in the hopes of heading as far away as possible. But Brynn quickly understands that some of these innocent bus travelers are actually under control of the aliens. Suddenly she’s on the run again as these “people” turn against her all over again.
Returning home, Brynn goes from one perilous battle against the aliens after another as it all leads to a fiery confrontation that ends with another alien dead. In her relentless struggle for survival, Brynn faces further challenges. Eventually, the aliens finally catch her, and subject her to a psychic burrowing. High up in their UFO, Brynn is forced to really grapple with the chaos that caused the town to turn against her all those years ago. We learn that there was a tragic accident involving Maude, where, in the heat of the moment, Brynn hit Maude in the head with a rock, killing her. Brynn is returned to Earth, free from the alien’s control. Some higher being has intervened, and spoken that she should be let go.
In the aftermath, Brynn finds herself living in her undamaged home, surrounded by townspeople who remain under the sway of the alien influence. Despite the strange circumstances, she carves out an existence amidst the suggestible residents, maintaining her autonomy in a world forever altered by otherworldly forces.
Why is No One Will Save You Successful?
Screenplay writers, please take note of this script. Objectively, stand back and consider this problem. No One Will Save You may not become financially successful, I don’t know, but it is objectively successful from a screenplay standpoint. Why? Because, in the quick opening of this film, it tightly sets up our hero, and poses a question. Why does everyone hate her so? We have literally no idea. None. We know her mother is dead, her friend is gone … the entire town despises her. We get all that in what, 5 minutes? 10 at most? It is a tight opening… really compelling. But it isn’t the aliens or the invasion that keeps the audience. They were pretty lame if you ask me… and worse, inconsistent.
The home invasion, and the alien attack was kind of funny. I mean, interesting. But it wasn’t why I stayed through to the end. I stayed because of that amazing open and the questions that it posed. I wanted to know why this young woman lived in this large farm home, all by herself. I wanted to know why she was ostracized. I wanted to know what had happened to her friend, and why she writes her notes every day.
But I Still Don’t Understand the Ending of No One Will Save You
OK, I think the ending of No One Will Save You is a tricky one, with a lot going on all at once… and I’m sure there are more than a few of us that are still reeling as the movie ended. So, let’s slow it down a minute.
The first thing you need to know is that the aliens have three tiers of ability:
- The Telekinetic Aliens – there are multiple sizes of the standard aliens that inhabit this film… super large versions, smaller, infants… etc. But they are all able to control objects physically with their minds.
- The Throat Bugs – don’t know what to call them. But the telekinetic aliens can cough up a bowl of spaghetti that, once swallowed by a human, allows them full control of the human. This works through the sending of happy, sunshine, and pleasant thoughts to the host’s brain. It controls them by giving them a Matrix-like perfection to their thoughts. Why fight back against such a lovely life? Also, we also learn that the throat bugs can actually take shape as a previous host if need be.
- The God-like Alien – there is one more alien that should be noted. We get sense that there might be one other alien that controls all the others. Maybe it’s the president? The King? Maybe it’s a different entity all together. We don’t know. But whoever they are, they definitely run roughshod on all the rest of the aliens.
So, knowing these three things about the aliens, we can walk back through the ending.
Brynn, after being thrown through a wall, gets levitated, and is given a throat bug that forces hallucinogenic visions of her best friend, Maude, still being alive. Her home is back to normal, and undamaged. But unlike other humans, Brynn is too accustomed to the normal chaos of life. She knows that she’s being mainlined lies at a prodigious rate. She doesn’t buy it. And because of that, she is able to fight back against the aliens burrowing deep inside her mind. With that, she forcibly jerks the throat bug out of her mouth.
Now is when we learn that once an alien samples a human via a throat bug, they are able to duplicate the host. And so now we have Brynn2. Then, after an altercation, and Brynn1 getting stabbed… Brynn1 is eventually able to overcome her alien duplicate and kill her with the boxcutter we saw her grab earlier. She is then captured by an enormous alien, that directs a ship to grab her. And this is where things get really interesting. Brynn has managed to kill a number of aliens so far. And she’s also managed to overcome the hallucinations of a Throat Bug. Brynn is not the stereotypical human. Why? What makes her so different?? The aliens want to know. So they collectively probe her mind and memories to discover the reason. (Which, is an enormously clever devices for how the audience will learn about all the questions posed at the beginning of the film.)
It’s during this sort of mental-interrogation, that we learn about how Brynn killed Maude years and years ago. And now we know the cause for her becoming an outcast. And the aliens realize that Brynn has been hardened into a real fighter. Into a really strong, and respectable individual. It is with this realization that our 3rd alien type steps in and demands that Brynn be allowed to be returned to the earth surface to live her life. And it is then that we meet her again, heading into town, in order to dance and frolic with the rest of the town’s people. WHY? What changed? Well, that is when we realize that every single person in the town is under the control of the aliens… all save her. They have all succumbed to the pleasantly distracting happy thoughts… but not Brynn. Does that make more sense now?
Final Thoughts on No One Will Save You
I love Closed Box films. Love love love them. Two people… hell, one person, and a single set location allows for the screenplay to stand on its own two feet and dazzle the audience. Closed Box films force the writer of the film to carry the weight, and set the stage for revelations and insights into the plot the further the audience goes. And that was no different here. We open with questions… and we close with answer… and a left hook that, while a bit hokey, is still a clever mindjob of an ending.
Sisu fans? Now this is how you do a movie with only a single line of dialogue. (Did you even notice that? The movie was so full of emotion and fantastic acting, I bet you didn’t know there was only one line.)
Edited by: CY
