No One Will Save You – A Clever Invasion Thriller

No One Will Save You is Brain Duffield’s sophomore feature as a director after his highly underrated and criminally underseen genre blending debut in 2020’s Spontaneous. While the film isn’t full of massive twists or non-stop secret reveals, it’s best going in blind simply for how subversive it is. The story follows an exiled anxiety-ridden woman named Brynn (Dever) who lives in solitude in her childhood home after her mother’s passing. Brynn’s world is completely thrown upside down when she experiences her home being invaded by unearthly visitors one night. Right off the bat, the film doesn’t come anywhere close to reaching the same heights of Duffield’s past works as a director or screenwriter, but still puts a fresh spin on the alien and home invasion genres led by another knockout performance from Dever.

Getting off to a great start in terms of pacing and build up without wasting any time before getting right to business and to what audiences came to see. Once that moment comes, it becomes hard to breathe due to the masterful the tension, camerawork, and editing. Duffield has only improved as a director since his feature debut and his direction here is a major reason why the film works as well as it does and is as suspenseful as it is. After that strong start, things do slow down and never quite reach those same heights again. In spite of that, the rest of the film remains solid and is sure to keep audiences engaged throughout its already short running time, clocking in at just over the 90-minute mark, through plenty standout sequences.

Dever is one of the finest actors of her generation and one who is no stranger to tackling many different genres and characters, and yet Brynn might be her most challenging role to date. Brynn is vastly different than any role she has ever played before but she proves to be more than up to the task, crushing the role and dominating every minute of screentime (which is quite a lot). Meanwhile, it is also a very physically demanding role that most young actors couldn’t pull off nearly as well as she did here. However, Dever goes about it with such ease, creating an emotional connection with audiences in despite withheld character development. Essentially a one woman shows, she delivers again, proving she can do virtually anything while looking like the ultimate badass.

For a smaller film, the visual effects are honestly very impressive. Avoiding an overabundance of VFX, Duffield is smart by showing restraint and holding things back until the right moment. Ultimately, the film should be commended for its cleverness. While not everything works, it takes big swings. That being said, there are issues that keep this from being great and unfortunately a lot of them have to do with spoilers, so we will just keep it at that for now. In the end, certain audiences may find themselves applauding it for its originality and ambition, while others will be left scratching their heads. Some of its creative choices make sense through the lens of the story the film is trying to tell, however, those choices lead to scenes that feel awkward and unnatural. While they work for the most part, when they don’t hit, they can become a distraction during a few notable moments.

No One Will Save You might peak in its first act but it is still a rock-solid alien invasion thriller which breezes by and is engaging throughout. While it may hit a few bumps along the way, it is ultimately worth the watch especially for fans of alien invasion thrillers. Though it has a lot of familiar beats, it is its own thing and proves that Brian Duffield can tackle just about any genre to great effect.

still courtesy of 20th Century Studios

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/