It had to happen after the box-office phenomenon of John Krasinski’s A QUIET PLACE – a female version of a horror dystopian setting of a film that could alternatively be called A DARK PLACE.  In BIRD BOX, the characters are not allowed to see or contact a virus of some sort that would kill them.  The protagonist is a female and so is the director, Dane Susanne Bier who has made a few acclaimed foreign films.  She brings structure, insight, craft and emotion into an otherwise run of the mill futuristic film.

BIRD BOX is an American post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Susanne Bier and with a screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Josh Malerman.

The script is radically different from Malerman’s novel.  Quite a few incidents have been omitted like the wolf attack or simplified like the sister’s death.  The ending is softened to a happier one.  So as not to give off a spoiler, one should read the book (or the summary available on wikipedia) to discover what real horrors took place in order for the survivors to live in the sanctuary.

So what is the reason behind this end of the world scenario?  In Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS, a  hysterical woman offers her theory while customers are held up at a gas station bar.  In BIRD BOX, one character offers his educated sounding theory to those held up in the house.  But another calls him out.  “And where do you work?  In a  grocery store?  Then he claims he is writing a book on the end of the world while getting all his research from the internet.  Another satirical moment occurs when the crazed John Malkovich character that he will make the end of the world great again.

The film follows a young woman (Sandra Bullock) who, along with a pair of unnamed children, (called boy and girl, for reasons made apparent in the film) must make it through a forest and river that includes rapids, blindfolded to avoid a supernatural entity that takes the appearance of its victims worst fears and causes them to commit suicide.  The film is called BIRD BOX because the woman carries a box of birds – the birds immune to the epidemic, supposed to be able to warn them and guide them to safety.  As the journey unfolds (with title indicating the number of days on river), flashbacks, set in the period 5 years earlier explain what happened prior to the woman and three children before being left to their own devices.  As the time period closes in to the present, the story gets a little confusing though not difficult to discern with a little thinking.

Before the 3 are left by themselves, there is a period where the woman and a few others  are held up in different places that include a house and a grocery story.  The group is played by a variety of known and excellent actors that includes Trevante Rhodes, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, Danielle Macdonald, Lil Rel Howery, Tom Hollander, BD Wong, Sarah Paulson and John Malkovich.  This is the film’s best segment. They argue vehemently with each other as to what to do.  This potion is reminiscent of the excellent original 2000 Spanish film, Alex de la Iglsia’s LE BAR (THE BAR), where an assortment of characters are held up in a bar while a disease is occurring outside and they cannot let anyone in for fear of being contaminated.

BIRD BOX is to be commended as an excellent dystopian futuristic film with strong female content and ethic diversity.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2AsIXSh2xo