Bird Box - Worth the watch?

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**

Netflix Original Bird Box premiered on December 21st 2018, starring Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson, John Malkovich and many other famous names. It broke records across Netflix, being streamed by over 45 million Netflix accounts in the first 7 days- no wonder it took the internet by storm. I couldn't avoid memes, mentions, a lot of praise and hype on EVERY social media platform. I eventually gave into the mass hype, I signed into my Netflix account, and prepared myself for the 2 hours of what I thought was going to be the best movie I've seen to date (spoiler alert- it was okay).

The Plot

The plot surrounds a pregnant woman Malorie played by Sandra Bullock, and her perspective before the wave of mass suicides spreads across the world. The suicides begin in Europe and the news is televised during the first scene where Malorie is painting and is visited by her sister Jess, played by Sarah Paulson. This foreshadows the inevitable chaos that soon takes over the city where Malorie and Jess live. In a nutshell, Jess is driving through the mass suicide craze, her eyes glaze over as she focuses on something we, the audience, don't see- and neither does Malorie. She flips the car, both her and Malorie survive, then walks in front of a speeding lorry. I just want to add, Sarah Paulsons' switch in character in this scene is astonishing. However, with what seems little emotion from Malorie who just witnessed her sister get demolished by a lorry, she ends up running to safety with Tom at the expense of Douglas' wife, who dies trying to save Malorie- into a house full of other survivors. The beginning of this movie is full of mystery, suspense and thrill- and is in my opinion the best part of the film.

Another pregnant woman, Olympia, shows up at the door. She isn't blindfolded, but is somehow still alive- this starts the theory that pregnant women aren't affected but this isn't explored or explained in much detail. Time goes by and as usual in an apocalyptic mass end of the world thriller movie, they run out of resources, and have to risk their lives to find them. They come to the conclusion that boarding up the house has worked, and if they don't look outside, they don't die. So they black out a car, take some blindfolds and use the car GPS to go to a local supermarket that character Charlie, one of the survivors, works at. Halfway through their two minute journey, the car is jolted around by wind and leaves. Again, we see nothing, they all escape the car safely into the store which they board up and remove their blindfolds. This is where they gain their resources, Malorie obtains a cage with birds - to which I still don't think was a well enough explained/reasoned significance given the title of the movie. More about that later.

Charlie dies saving everyone else from a colleague who is insane, trapped behind one of the supermarket doors. I'm still not over his death, don't talk to me about it. The rest of them make it back to the house safely. Lucy and Felix, two survivors at the house steal the car leaving everyone else in the house stranded.

Olympia lets a stranger, Gary, who proves to eventually show his insanity. He pulls out drawings of monsters, which suggests he's seen these monsters. He doesn't commit suicide when he looks outside, instead he forces others to look too, as he believes everyone should looks because it is 'beautiful'.

Forcing everyone to look outside while Malorie and Olympia are in labour he pulls all the boarding off the windows. Olympia and Cheryl die from suicide, while Douglas dies by being stabbed by Gary because he refused to look at the 'beauty' outside. We see Tom and Gary fighting over a shotgun, followed by the sound of a shot while Malorie hides under a blanket from the outside, holding the two newborns. We are left wondering who died, then Tom appears, comforting Malorie, and the house is made safe again.

Years later, Tom and Malorie have been raising the children Boy and Girl. They receive a transmission from survivors in a community down the river. They instruct them that they probably won't survive with children across the river, but that it is safe there. At their current shelter they are approached by insane survivors, who aren't blindfolded, Tom sacrifices himself and takes off his blindfold to shoot the intruders, but ends up caught outside in the gust of wind and commits suicide by shooting himself. WE STILL SEE NOTHING. We're just supposed to believe they see 'something' and it drives them crazy and kill themselves. This is where Malorie, the kids and the birds in the box, travel across the river for days. With a few close calls and near death experiences they make it to a community which is for the blind - making them all survivors of this mass suicide wave. Malorie lets the birds go to join the other birds, and names the boy and girl Olympia, after her mum and Tom after her partner who sacrificed himself to save her and the kids.

Theories and Opinions

So... these birds. What do they represent? What do they mean? Why are they so important that Bird Box is literally the name of the movie? But they are shown about three times? Firstly, they react to the insane man in the supermarket that kills Charlie. Malorie instantly trusts the birds freaking out even though she cannot see the man. She yells that something is wrong because the birds flap about in the cage. It is well known that animals have great senses which could have been played on throughout the movie, like when Gary appeared, to show a warning to not open the door- or when the insane intruders showed up that Tom had to fend off and sacrifice his life for. There is also no explanation to why this suicide wave didn't impact the birds as they were left vulnerably to look outside. If they can sense the 'monsters'? then why aren't they killing themselves like people are? They are let free in the school for the blind sanctuary by Malorie at the end of the movie - I can only assume this represents the freedom they now have, but that's a bit cliche. Personally, I didn't connect with the whole symbolism of the birds, and I love a good story with meaningful symbols, hidden ideas and plots that make you think about the bigger picture. I think that's what Bird Box tries to do but I just couldn't click with it whatsoever.

What could have also been a huge explored topic was the idea that pregnant women weren't affected by the wave of suicides. Is this because they just couldn't see what everyone else could see? If so, then why? Did this impact the child when they were born? Were they also immune to it because of this connection?

The only clarity I really got from the chaos was that 'insane' people, that were clinically mentally ill before the wave of suicides, didn't commit suicide themselves - so in this way they were immune to the outbreak- but they then forced other people to look and ultimately kill themselves. Again, this could have been explored in further detail and this was already a 2 hour movie! It could have had so much potential as a series instead. There's so many paths that could be explored and characters that could have had their back stories explained in great detail. This would have cut out the 'wishy-washy' approach to the whole movie, leaving no stone unturned, still keeping the suspense and thrill alive, but leaving the audience gripping the edge of their seats at the end of each episode.

Overall, I just think the movie Bird Box didn't reach its' full potential. I so badly wanted it to delve into some of the back story of why the suicides were happening. Not just left with theories of 'there's monsters' but just see whirlwinds of leaves. If it was a series it would have huge potential to explore the back stories of each survivor and how they got to the house alive, when others didn't. It definitely wasn't the best movie I've ever watched, but it wasn't so bad I wanted to turn it off either. The actors and actresses were brilliant in their roles, everything just needed to be fleshed out a lot more. It was just okay, it didn't live up to all the hype.