Writer/director Brian Duffield has only directed two films so far, but he’s already starting to carve out a specific niche. He’s a filmmaker who loves to take these character-driven, emotional stories and put them against the backdrop of genre. This is seen with the love story at the center of “Spontaneous,” a film where teens are literally exploding, or in his new movie, “No One Will Save You,” which is a film about a young woman feeling isolated and alone and has to deal with an alien invasion. In this episode of The Playlist Podcast, Brian Duffield discusses integrating genre into his “Sundance dramas” and much more.
“No One Will Save You” is perhaps one of the most interesting sci-fi films to get released in 2023. Not only does it star Kaitlyn Dever, but the film mixes the alien invasion subgenre with the home invasion thriller. This film asks, “What happens to a 20-year-old girl who wakes up to see an alien breaking into her house?” It’s a terrifying thought, no doubt. And there’s a little twist that we talk about in the interview more, but you begin to realize that Dever’s character is truly alone, and she has no one to speak with. This means most of the film is dialogue-free as you watch this terrified young woman trying to make sense of an alien invasion with no one to save her but herself.
In our discussion, we talked quite a bit about the lack of dialogue in the film, with Duffield explaining that it was never his intention to make a film like this, but it just happened naturally as a way to stay true to the character.
“When I started working on it, I didn’t know it was dialogue-free, essentially,” explained the filmmaker. “I knew it would be spare. My last movie had so much talking in it, and I knew I wanted to do something lean and mean. I like the idea of it being this one character’s POV, and we’re going to go through this thing, and she’s not going to have a dog to talk to. She’s not going to have phone calls… This is about her isolation and lack of community.”
He added, “She’s desperate for exposition, but no one likes her enough to give it to her. So, instead of it being about, ‘Oh, we’re cute and silent,’ it became–this girl is really alone and cut off from the world. And she’s going through this end-of-world event by herself. It felt deeply rooted in her character.”
In the interview, we also talk about Duffield’s time as just a screenwriter, where he got his start. He’s experienced all of the ups and downs of that role, handing off a finished script to another filmmaker and hoping for the best. Sometimes, that works out well, and sometimes, it doesn’t, as was the case for the infamous “Jane Got a Gun,” which we also discuss.
“As a creative person and a writer who wanted to be a director, I felt like directing is kind of just finishing the sentence,” he said. “It felt unsatisfying that I couldn’t finish what I was saying. I felt like I was always interrupted… It just felt like I wanted to finish my thought. And if everyone felt like my thought was stupid, at least it was my fault… I don’t really understand writers who don’t want to direct because it just feels like you’re halfway finished the whole time.”
“No One Will Save You” debuts on Hulu on September 22. You can hear the whole discussion below:
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