I Think We're Alone Now (film)

Last updated

I Think We're Alone Now
I Think We're Alone Now.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Reed Morano
Written by Mike Makowsky
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyReed Morano
Edited byMadeleine Gavin
Music by Adam Taylor
Production
companies
Distributed by Momentum Pictures
Release dates
  • January 21, 2018 (2018-01-21)(Sundance)
  • September 14, 2018 (2018-09-14)(United States)
Running time
99 minutes [1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$3,162 [2]

I Think We're Alone Now is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic romance drama film directed by Reed Morano, who also acted as cinematographer, and written by Mike Makowsky. It stars Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning as two survivors who learn to live together after a worldwide pandemic wipes out Earth's population.

Contents

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. It was released on September 14, 2018, by Momentum Pictures.

Plot

Del lives alone in a small town after an unspecified but sudden (people died where they sat) apocalyptic event has killed off the human population "on a Tuesday afternoon". Believing he is the last man on Earth, Del has set about leading a peaceful existence in his hometown, living in the library where he used to work and spending the day clearing out people's homes and burying the dead.

One night, he is awakened by fireworks. The following day, he discovers a young woman named Grace, unconscious in her car, having gotten into a drunken car accident. Initially, Del is unwelcoming toward the woman, who follows him around and urges him to let her stay. When the woman decides to leave, Del stops her and allows for a theoretical trial period in case they need each other.

Grace is a noisy, erratic presence, but Del reluctantly becomes used to her, feeding her and teaching her his methods for clearing the homes of the dead. When Grace finds a dog, she showers it with love and attention, but after the dog bites Del, he lets it loose and it runs away. When he admits this to Grace, she is furious and reminds him that while he was bitter and alone in his previous life, she was loved and happy. A repentant Del shows her his greenhouse and asks her to continue clearing houses with him.

On one of her trips to search for houses, Grace comes across a house that has not been cleared yet and which Del does not want to clear. She realizes that it belonged to Del's family. Grace convinces Del to clean the house and bury the body of his mother. Afterwards, Grace informs Del that she has something to tell him but instead avoids addressing the topic directly and kisses him.

The following morning, Del wakes up in the house Grace has been using and is surprised to hear voices downstairs. He meets two new survivors, Patrick and Violet, who introduce themselves as Grace's parents. It is revealed that there were thousands of survivors of the apocalypse, who have formed a community. Because Del has never left his town, he has not been made aware.

Del is upset and leaves but Grace chases him and begs him to keep her with him, saying that the couple are not her real parents and that she was paired with them when she reached the survivor's commune in California. Del ignores her and leaves. Patrick visits Del at the library, where he urges Del to come with him, hinting at different experiments occurring in California that focus on the mind.

Soon thereafter, Grace leaves with the couple and Del returns to his solitary lifestyle, though he is now wracked with loneliness. No longer capable of living alone, Del abandons his small town and drives to the address Patrick left him, hoping to find Grace. Del sneaks into Grace's home to see her, and while there, sees she has undergone more behavior modification surgery to erase the lingering trauma caused by the loss of her family. While Del and Grace are trying to escape, Patrick attempts to stop them. He explains that the only way for the human race to move forward is to forget the past and what they all lost. Grace panics and shoots him. Violet is not upset as she still remembers her previous life and the daughter she lost, despite the behavior modification she has been subjected to. Del and Grace find the city populated with disconcertingly happy survivors, all blissfully and willfully ignorant of their past trauma. Del and Grace leave the city with no stated or implied goal or destination.

Cast

Production

In October 2016, Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning were attached to star as Del and Grace, respectively. [1] [3] Principal photography was done in New York state, including the towns of Hastings-on-Hudson and Haverstraw. [4]

Soundtrack

Working Man Written by Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson Performed by Rush

Finding My Way Written by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson Performed by Rush

LA Knights Performed by Four Step Plan Courtesy of Four Step Plan

Livin' Proof Performed by Group Home Courtesy of Island Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises

Free The Mind Performed by Johann Johannsson Courtesy of NTOV

Cuban Jam Written by La Palabra Performed by Orquesta La Palabra Published by Big Tiger Music (BMI) Courtesy of Light In The Attic Records & Distribution, LLC

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018, where it won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Excellence in Filmmaking. [5] A month later, Momentum Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film. [6] It was released on September 14, 2018. [7]

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 63% approval rating, based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "I Think We're Alone Now benefits from an absorbing aesthetic and solid work from its leads, although it's still somewhat less than the sum of its post-apocalyptic parts." [8] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 51 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [9]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 2 stars out of 5, saying, "the emotional investment we make in Del and Grace comes to nothing, as the plot ties up loose ends without a single surprise or a scintilla of genuine emotion." [10] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "It's hard to figure what induced director Reed Morano, who did such a fine job directing the first three episodes of The Handmaid's Tale last season, to take on such a script, one so devoid of surprise, intriguing notions and compelling scenes." [11] Vikram Murthi of The A.V. Club gave the film a "C" grade, saying, "Morano's film wants to examine the emotional consequences of immersing oneself in trauma, but Makowsky's script merely paws at the edges of the idea rather than diving into the knottiness of it." [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffany Darwish</span> American singer (born 1971)

Tiffany Renee Darwish, known mononymously as Tiffany, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and former teen icon. Her 1987 cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells song "I Think We're Alone Now" spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and was released as the second single from her debut studio album Tiffany.

<i>Sorry, Wrong Number</i> 1948 film by Anatole Litvak

Sorry, Wrong Number is a 1948 American thriller and film noir directed by Anatole Litvak, from a screenplay by Lucille Fletcher, based on her 1943 radio play of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dinklage</span> American actor (born 1969)

Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor best known for portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times. He also received a Golden Globe Award in 2011 and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2020 for the role. Dinklage has a common form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia and stands 4 ft 5 in (1.35 m) tall. He has used his celebrity status to raise social awareness of dwarfism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elle Fanning</span> American actress (born 1998)

Mary Elle Fanning is an American actress. She made her film debut as a child as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film I Am Sam and in the miniseries Taken (2002). She appeared in several other films as a child actress, including Daddy Day Care (2003), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Phoebe in Wonderland, and the miniseries The Lost Room (2006). She then had leading roles in Sofia Coppola's drama Somewhere (2010) and J. J. Abrams' science fiction film Super 8 (2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chloë Grace Moretz</span> American actress (born 1997)

Chloë Grace Moretz is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including four MTV Movie & TV Awards, two People's Choice Awards, two Saturn Awards, and two Young Artist Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I Think We're Alone Now</span> 1967 single by Tommy James and the Shondells

"I Think We're Alone Now" is a song written and composed by Ritchie Cordell that was first recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells. It was a major hit for the group, reaching number 4 on the US Hot 100 in April 1967. It finished at No. 12 on Billboard magazine's year-end singles chart for 1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blake Jenner</span> American actor

Blake Alexander Jenner is an American actor. Jenner won the second season of Oxygen's The Glee Project and, as a result, portrayed Ryder Lynn on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee. He has since had starring and supporting roles in Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), The Edge of Seventeen (2016), American Animals (2018), and What/If (2019).

<i>Grandma</i> (2015 film) 2015 film by Paul Weitz

Grandma is a 2015 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Paul Weitz. It stars Lily Tomlin as Elle, a lesbian poet and widow whose teenage granddaughter visits her to ask for money for an abortion. Over the space of a day, they visit numerous people from Elle's past to call in favors in an effort to raise the money.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dinklage on screen and stage</span> Filmography

Peter Dinklage is an American actor and producer. He studied acting at the Bennington College where he starred in a number of amateur stage productions. He made his film debut in the 1995 comedy-drama Living in Oblivion. After appearing in a series of supporting parts in much of the 1990s and early 2000s, he made his breakthrough by starring in the Tom McCarthy-directed comedy-drama The Station Agent (2003), which had him play a railroad-obsessed introvert who inherits an abandoned train depot. He was cast in the role by director Tom McCarthy who recalled fondly his appearance in McCarthy's play The Killing Act (1995). For his performance, he received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Actor and an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Male Lead. In the same year, Dinklage played the title role in the play Richard III at The Public Theater. He also played a children's book author in the comedy Elf. In 2006, he appeared in the Sidney Lumet-directed crime film Find Me Guilty. He followed with roles in the films Underdog (2007), the British film Death at a Funeral (2007), with its American remake of the same name (2010) and Trumpkin in the high fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008).

Reed Morano is an American film director and cinematographer. Morano was the first woman in history to win both the Emmy and Directors Guild Award for directing a drama series in the same year for the pilot episode of The Handmaid's Tale. Morano is known for her cinematography work on feature films such as Frozen River (2008), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and The Skeleton Twins (2014).

<i>Elle</i> (film) 2016 film by Paul Verhoeven

Elle is a 2016 psychological thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven from a screenplay by David Birke, based on the novel Oh... by Philippe Djian. Djian's novel was published in 2012 and received the Prix Interallié. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as a businesswoman who is raped in her home by a masked assailant and decides not to report it due to her past experience with police.

<i>Rememory</i> 2017 film by Mark Palansky

Rememory is a 2017 British-American-Canadian science fiction mystery film directed by Mark Palansky and written by Mark Palansky and Michael Vukadinovich. The film stars Peter Dinklage, Julia Ormond, Anton Yelchin, Henry Ian Cusick, Gracyn Shinyei and Colin Lawrence. The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2017. The film was released on Google Play on August 24, 2017, before being released in theaters and video on demand on September 8, 2017, by Lionsgate Premiere. The film received generally negative reviews from critics.

<i>Assassination Nation</i> 2018 film by Sam Levinson

Assassination Nation is a 2018 American satirical black horror comedy thriller film written and directed by Sam Levinson. It stars an ensemble cast led by Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Abra. The film takes place in the fictional town of Salem, which devolves into chaos and violence after a computer hacker discovers and leaks personal secrets about many of its residents.

The 2018 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 18 to January 28, 2018. The first lineup of competition films was announced on November 29, 2017.

<i>The Lodge</i> (film) 2019 film directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

The Lodge is a 2019 psychological horror film directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, written by Franz, Fiala, and Sergio Casci, and starring Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Alicia Silverstone, and Richard Armitage. Its plot follows a soon-to-be stepmother who, alone with her fiancé's two children, becomes stranded at their rural lodge during Christmas. There, she and the children experience a number of unexplained events that seem to be connected to her past.

<i>Io</i> (film) 2019 film by Jonathan Helpert

Io is a 2019 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Jonathan Helpert. It stars Margaret Qualley, Anthony Mackie and Danny Huston.

<i>I Am Mother</i> 2019 film by Grant Sputore

I Am Mother is a 2019 Australian cyberpunk thriller film directed by Grant Sputore, from a screenplay by Michael Lloyd Green, based on a story by both. Starring Clara Rugaard, Luke Hawker, Rose Byrne, and Hilary Swank, the film follows Daughter, a girl in a post-apocalyptic bunker, being raised by Mother, a robot aiding the repopulation of Earth. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2019. Netflix released it in several countries on 7 June 2019.

<i>All the Bright Places</i> (film) 2020 teen romantic drama movie directed by Brett Haley

All the Bright Places is a 2020 American teen romantic drama film, directed by Brett Haley, from a screenplay by Jennifer Niven and Liz Hannah, adapted from the novel of the same name by Niven. It stars Elle Fanning, Justice Smith, Alexandra Shipp, Kelli O'Hara, Lamar Johnson, Virginia Gardner, Felix Mallard, Sofia Hasmik, Keegan-Michael Key, and Luke Wilson.

<i>What Still Remains</i> 2018 American film

What Still Remains is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic thriller written and directed by Josh Mendoza. Lulu Antariksa stars as a young adult who loses her family. She comes upon a man from a religious commune, played by Colin O'Donoghue, who invites her to join them.

Mike Makowsky is an American screenwriter and producer. He wrote the true crime dramedy film Bad Education, which premiered on HBO in 2020. He has also written the films Take Me and I Think We're Alone Now.

References

  1. 1 2 "I Think We're Alone Now". Sundance Film Festival. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  2. "I Think We're Alone Now (2018)". Box Office Mojo.
  3. Ford, Rebecca (October 20, 2016). "Peter Dinklage, Elle Fanning to Star in 'I Think We're Alone Now' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  4. "Sarah Jessica Parker, Peter Dinklage, Josh Radnor filming here". The Journal News . Lower Hudson Valley, New York. April 6, 2017. Archived from the original on July 14, 2018. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  5. "2018 Sundance Film Festival: Feature Films Announced". Sundance Film Festival. November 29, 2017. Archived from the original on December 22, 2017. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  6. Fleming, Mike Jr. (February 27, 2018). "Reed Morano's Sundance Winner 'I Think We're Alone Now' Sells To Momentum Pictures". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  7. Canfield, David (July 24, 2018). "I Think We're Alone Now teaser: Peter Dinklage stars in a very different kind of post-apocalyptic film". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  8. "I Think We're Alone Now (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango . Retrieved October 10, 2021.
  9. "I Think We're Alone Now". Metacritic . Retrieved January 30, 2018.
  10. Travers, Peter (September 12, 2018). "'I Think We're Alone Now' Review: There's No Surviving This Postapocalyptic Drama". Rolling Stone . Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  11. McCarthy, Todd (January 21, 2018). "'I Think We're Alone Now': Film Review | Sundance 2018". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  12. Murthi, Vikram (September 10, 2018). "Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning spin their wheels in the hollow post-apocalyptic drama I Think We're Alone Now". The A.V. Club . Retrieved January 12, 2019.