Bird Box (2018) Review

Bird Box is based off a novel written by Josh Malerman back in 2014. A book that received the Michigan Notable Book Award (2015) and nominations for the James Herbert Award and Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel (2015). Malerman’s debut novel even drew comparisons to Stephen King’s written work. Nevertheless, an interesting story that features a smooth, alternating story line on the page comes across as a disorganized mess on the screen.

Susanne Bier is the director of Bird Box and this film tells the story of a mother named Malorie (played by Sandra Bullock) that must find safety in the face of a global tragedy. An epidemic that causes people who look outside to turn suicidal and stop at nothing to end their own life. The premise sounds nothing short of intriguing and a strong lead actress like Sandra Bullock should give the filmmakers a framework to create an effective film adaptation of the original novel. Unfortunately, a fascinating narrative with an equitable performance from Bullock is all this movie has going for it.

An integral feature of the novel Bird Box is an interchanging plot that shifts from present day to five years prior. This can be a reasonable way to structure your story using a 273-page book, not a 124-minute movie. The film greets us with a mother instructing her two children on what not to do before they go outside and travel down the river. This ham-fisting of rules to the audience is foreshadowing and it does a poor job of hiding that. Dropping the audience off in the middle of unknown conflict also asks us to buy into these characters when it gives us zero reason to initially care about them.

Malorie is not a likeable character either until there is 10 minutes left in the runtime. She is perfectly fine ignoring the world around her, mentions drinking alcohol while pregnant twice, and drinks hard liquor once. Her character is cold, and she does not react at all to the death of her own sister. In fact, Malorie cries more when someone tells her a tragic story about people she has never met before. She winds up at a random house full of people with completely different personalities after the major outbreak hits the country and this is where the movie starts to take a turn for the worst.

The side characters could not be shallower and more irritating. When she first arrives, there is one character that appears sensible, until said character dies within ten minutes and leaves us with personalities that feel ingenuine. Side characters disguise themselves as plot devices horrifically and their dialogue is infuriatingly annoying. The “asshole” character has no logical reason to be rude to everyone except to create tension among the rest of the group. The nerd character uses his expertise to lead them to the grocery store only to die moments later. A teenage boy who drops f-bombs in every sentence along with his irksome, attractive girlfriend are there to inconvenience everyone’s plan and leave.

The worst part of all this is that Malorie meets a mentally sane man named Tom (played by Trevante Rhodes). He is a very caring person who eventually becomes a father figure for Malorie’s kids. However, the movie shows us what will happen with these characters five years from now, so we are fully aware that all these characters, including Tom, are completely irrelevant in the long-term. What is the point in investing my time in characters that I know will either leave or die? It is counterproductive from a cinematic standpoint.

It is difficult to translate a long novel into a movie and be able to include every aspect of the book. It may be hard, but it is possible. There must be an in-depth understanding of the story to determine what can be taken out. However, the pace of the film shows that several events in the book did not make it into the movie. The entire world falls apart within a span of ten minutes and then the story fixates on Malorie in a random house for over an hour. The only interesting parts of this movie are when it flashes forwards to present day for five-minute intervals. The story begins to create some incredibly tense scenes that arise suspicion and draw many questions. I began to invest in the story despite its character and structure flaws. It became clear quickly that I would not be getting any answers for the multitude of questions that I had.

I do not mind an ambiguous ending to stories because it creates thorough conversations about the plot and spurs fan theories, but Bird Box does not take that approach. The only thing that is not ambiguous is the ending. They do not begin to explain the entity that chases them or the disease that infects the entire population. Instead, the movie gives the audience one of those most cliché endings I have ever seen and an awful attempt to gift-wrap a horror movie with flowery wrapping paper. It conflicts with the tone of the movie and it feels like a total reach to gather sympathy for dead, irrelevant characters.

Sandra Bullock delivers an acceptable performance, although she does not have to evoke many strong emotions. Her character is what holds her back. She bounces back and forth between being a loving mother to someone who overreacts and yells at her boyfriend and kids for no understandable reason. Trevante Rhodes plays an honest, engaging character that feels genuine and perfect for a character like Malorie. Trevante does have tendency to talk quickly in arguments, which makes it hard to hear his side of the conversation without subtitles on, but he does an excellent job selling a realistic, bobbing relationship.

The production design upholds that Netflix standard well and the cinematography is gorgeous considering they constantly must work in low-light settings, which never appear too dark. The scenes that take place on the river are eerie and unsettling thanks to the use of fog that rarely is overbearing. The sound design shines in the final act as the entity begins to mimic sounds of past characters that echo through a vast, empty forest. This movie has all the tools to be exceptional, yet it falls short of expectations set by the novel.

I do have a critical issue. If there was no way to turn Bird Box into a coherent movie that does the book service, then why bother making the film in the first place? The original story has structure and depth but if there is no way to translate that to film without insulting the source material then it is doing more harm than good.

The phrase “eye candy” is an exact description of the movie Bird Box. The deaths throughout the film are entertaining, the cast is more than serviceable, and the premise is formidable. However, there appears to be a huge issue translating that incredible story into a coherent movie. A messy cluster of meaningless characters and irregular pacing detract from the brilliance of Malerman’s original novel.

Final Score: 5.5/10