Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for A Quiet Place 2.
A Quiet Place Part II writer, director, and actor John Krasinski pulled off an incredible sequel feat, with Cillian Murphy’s new character successfully replacing Krasinski’s own leading-man role from the first film. As Krasinski’s third directorial venture after typically being known for his role as Jim Halpert on The Office and producer credits on films like Manchester by the Sea, A Quiet Place (2018) was an unexpected, resounding success for Krasinski’s new career path. Not only have A Quiet Place and its sequel been critically acclaimed at their releases, but a third Quiet Place movie has also been teased by Krasinski.
A Quiet Place occurs about a year into a post-apocalyptic world in which blind monsters attracted to sound have terrorized Earth and killed most of humanity. The first film follows the Abbott family led by father Lee (Krasinski), mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt), and including daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and son Marcus (Noah Jupe) as they survive the new world, largely due to their prior fluency with American Sign Language from Regan’s deafness. The horror movie is much more of a family story, tragically ending with Lee sacrificing himself for his family. A Quiet Place Part II picks up right where the first film left off, now with the family (minus Lee) finding more survivors and help, where they stumble upon their old friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy).
Introducing a new character that essentially takes the place of a core character is extremely difficult to properly execute, yet Krasinski writes Cillian Murphy’s character, Emmett, in a way that feels natural and unintrusive. Emmett doesn’t become the children’s new father, leader, or suitor to Evelyn, he’s simply another exploration of fatherhood in which he resolves his own failures through his reluctant relationship with the Abbotts. While he is their new male figure, it’s not an overbearing relationship wherein Emmett is acting as a stepfather to the children or competing with Lee’s legacy. In this way, Emmett’s character could have made or broken A Quiet Place II, but John Krasinski’s execution turned Cillian Murphy into a miraculously successful replacement for Lee.
Emmett Is A New Exploration Of Fatherhood
Krasinski has explained that A Quiet Place was an allegory for his fear of fatherhood, and Lee's character arc explores the trials and tribulations, in an exaggerated manner, of being a parent. Lee’s troubles with fatherhood are most closely seen with his daughter Regan, with whom he has a loving, yet strained relationship. In A Quiet Place, Regan believes part of his emotional distance from her is due to her deafness requiring more time and attention than her younger siblings, as well as believing he blames her for her younger brother’s death. Lee doesn’t tend to show his affection for Regan openly and consistently, though he loves her and shows it through spending an incredible amount of his time building cochlear implants for her. Krasinski’s exploration of fatherhood through Lee is resolved in the final act wherein Lee signs to Regan he loves her and has always loved her before screaming, sacrificing himself to the monsters to save his kids.
Lee and Regan’s relationship represents John Krasinki’s fears of not being able to properly display his love to his children, and worrying that his inability to meaningfully communicate his feelings to his children will cause resentment. When Lee sacrifices himself for Regan and Marcus, Krasinski is telling his own children that, even if he fails in showing it, he loves them immensely and would literally die for them. Krasinski also strategically leaves his real-life wife Emily Blunt’s character Evelyn out of the core conflict with Regan, communicating that he doesn’t fear his wife being unable to fully connect with their children, only himself. It’s not a feeling that’s specific to Krasinski; nearly every new or expecting parent tends to fear their ability to properly parent and give their kids the perfect relationship they deserve. The caveat is that Krasinski so incredibly places these fears into an actual monster and crisis, putting it all on the line, and compellingly pulls it off.
Cillian Murphy's Emmett is cleverly introduced in the cold open of A Quiet Place II that serves as a short prequel to the first film, wherein he is a friend to the Abbotts and has a son that plays baseball with Marcus. Instead of introducing Emmett as a random dark figure who saves them from the monster, he tries to hide his face because he can’t bear the shame of telling them he outlived his son and wife. Their preexisting friendship makes it easier for Evelyn to convince Emmett to help them and their family history means he won’t be pursuing anything more than a friendship with them. What’s even more tragic is that Emmett is revealed to be the person who kept a fire going that allowed Lee to know others were out there, though Emmett admits he never intended to seek out the Abbotts.
Emmett Isn't Competing With Lee
The storyline of Cillian Murphy's Emmett is essentially an investigation of what Lee would have felt had he not been able to save his family and was the only one to survive. Krasinski isn’t implying that Emmett should have died to save his son and wife - in his wife’s case it was simply illness - he is exploring the guilt one feels in outlasting their child with whom they are tasked with protecting above all else. Consistent with Krasinski’s focus on fatherhood, Emmett is much more preoccupied with remorse over his son’s death than his wife's. When the Abbotts begin to explore the facility Emmett is living in, they find an abundance of drawings of his son - who by this point had been dead for over a year. This may be due to his wife’s death being much more recent and in a manner he could perceive less as his fault, but he also never properly dealt with her death considering Marcus finds her decomposed body behind a curtain in the facility.
Just as Krasinski used Lee’s relationship with Regan to examine his worries about fatherhood, A Quiet Place Part II focuses more heavily on Regan and Emmett’s unlikely companionship to resolve Emmett’s self-reproach. Not only does he protect Regan, but Emmett also makes sure the first person he saves on the unsuspecting island is a seven-year-old boy standing alone. He is also unable to resist protecting the Abbotts when Evelyn shows him her newborn son, an innocent figure that not even the pessimistic Emmett can avoid saving. Without writing Emmett in a way that feels helpful yet not overbearing, the core conflict would be less believable and Emmett’s contributions instead interpreted as an inferior contrast to Lee and Regan’s parent-child relationship. Fortunately, the pair’s friendship is used to reconcile with their respective guilt for the deaths of their closest loved ones and continue with the familial conflict from A Quiet Place.
A Quiet Place 2’s conflict is a way for Emmett to redeem himself for his perceived guilt in his failure to protect his own family, where he connects with Regan in a way that also redeems his faith in humanity. In one of the final scenes of the film, Emmett does what he wishes he had done for his son and what Lee actually did for his children; he shuts the door to the studio, putting himself in the position to die so Regan and, hopefully, in-reach New Yorkers, can survive. Emmett is saved by Regan as she blasts the implant into the radio broadcast, allowing the two to survive while also serving as a way for Regan to resolve her guilt after her father died for her.
Krasinski masterfully executes a follow-up in a genre that tends to produce less-successful sequels by crafting A Quiet Place 2 in a manner more indicative of a second season of a TV series rather than just repeating the same set-up with a different setting and new characters. Newly introduced characters like Emmett, who ostensibly replace previously lost characters, tend not to work in movie franchises; take for example Before the Planet of the Apes (1970), where James Franciscus unsuccessfully takes over the lead from Charlton Heston. Lee’s memory is still there, especially in a candid moment with Regan and Emmett where she says Emmett is “nothing like him” because Lee would have actually helped, but it’s not distracting in a way that one is constantly comparing Murphy to Krasinski. While Marcus and Evelyn provide excellent contributions and dramatic enhancement to the film, the core draw is Regan and Emmett’s journey, which doesn’t work if the character isn’t perfectly written and executed by the right actor. Thankfully for A Quiet Place Part II, John Krasinski and Cillian Murphy stepped up to the plate and delivered a compelling new character.