No One Will Save You is a basil flavored Italian meatball. At first glance, it looks like every other meatball you’ve ever had, but bite in and the flavor is bold and unexpected, even. To the untrained palate, it might taste good. But anyone with a bit of culinary sense knows that basil has no business being the main ingredient in the classic spaghetti and meatballs recipe. It’s not how you build a proper pasta dish as much as it is the ingredients and after product. Such it is with cinema and that’s this movie in a nutshell; stylish, unique, and even daring on the surface, but seasoned amateurishly.
Nevertheless, one of the film’s boldest moves is its lack of spoken dialogue from the main character. Kaitlyn Dever carries the silence with raw emotion and presence and she deserves credit for pulling it off. It’s a daring choice that immediately sets the film apart.
But the script bends itself to make this gimmick work. Characters behave in odd, unnatural ways, simply to preserve the no dialogue conceit. What should be clever, quickly pushes suspension of disbelief, leaving the audience aware of the trick rather than immersed in the story.
Brian Duffield has undeniable skill behind the camera. The film is dripping with atmosphere, the set design is gorgeous, and the mood often clicks. But the script leans on gimmicks and heavy handed metaphors. One most notably being a dance/dream sequence that tries to inflate the film’s importance but lands as pretentious, instead of profound.
Without spoiling too much, the antagonists, which use a blend of telepathy, telekinesis, and psychokinesis, never feel threatening. Their design is stereotypical, their presence underwhelming. Instead of menace, they inspire detachment, undermining the tension that the film’s visuals work so hard to build.
No One Will Save You is ambitious and technically impressive. Its silence experiment is brave, its visuals striking, and its production design first class. But beneath the garnish, the meatball is seasoned wrong. Forced narrative choices, overindulgent metaphors, and unimposing monsters leave the dish unsatisfying.
It’s like putting Grey Poupon on an undercooked hotdog; all garnish, no meal. Just a fancy taste on the outside, while it’s lukewarm as you bite into it on the inside. Some viewers may admire the artistry, but for me it takes a bit more, it’s a hard pass.