The new Kaitlyn Dever-headlined action thriller has a little bit of a twist to it (which we’re not going to spoil).
News stories about the casting of Kaitlyn Dever in Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You have played coy thus far. But surely we can hint at the film’s bold conceit without spoiling anything?
I think it’s safe to say that the film is a high-concept thriller with action. There are other genre elements too, but in case there’s a brave marketing campaign that keeps them under wraps, we’re going to keep mum for now.
What we will say is that the film’s screenplay is almost entirely dialogue free. Is there one surprise line, like The Artist or Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie? Does it erupt into a talky third act that rewrites the rules? Is all of the dialogue burned off up front, like the Coens’ To The White Sea? Or does Duffield go top to bottom without a single utterance?
We’re not saying. It’s not the point to spoil the film, instead to point out that it’s going to be very action-driven. It’s all about watching a character – Brynn, to be played by Dever – in a high-stakes situation. Watching her, and watching her, and watching her… It’s going to be a film that leans heavily on visual storytelling – on atmosphere, on shot design, on cutting, and on performance.
The best sequence in Duffield’s recent Spontaneous was a mad, action-packed scramble through a high school – you’ll know the bit we mean if you’ve seen it – so it’s obvious he has the chops to pull off what No One Will Save You is demanding.
And now we’ve seen his script, also obvious that he’s got the nerve to write some pretty bold stuff in the first place.
High concept scripts can fall flat on their face, but it’s always interesting to see a writer take a big swing. Simon Kinberg’s upcoming Netflix heist movie Here Comes The Flood, for example, will be comprised entirely of sequences that last the exact same running time as one another, and they’ll all be stitched together in a non-linear order.
So, for example, you might get one five minute chunk from near the end, then five minutes from near the beginning, then five minutes from the middle, and so on and on. In Kniberg’s own words, the film was “conceived that way because that’s the way we experience and remember life – the flow between now and then and fears and hopes. The film will have a visual grammar to articulate this.”
There’s no word yet on No One Will Save You will be released, but expect quite a lot of fuss nearer the time.
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