New thriller movie Soft & Quiet was filmed in one take, four times in a row, over four consecutive days. The movie premiered at SXSW Film Festival back in March and went on to pick up rave reviews, scoring 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film "follows a single afternoon in the life of an elementary school teacher as she organizes a mixer of like-minded women. When the group heads home, the teacher encounters a woman from her past, leading to a volatile chain of events." The "like-minded women" in question? White supremacists.
Soft & Quiet is director Beth de Araújo's feature debut and stars Stefanie Estes, Olivia Luccardi, Eleanore Pienta, Dana Millican, and Melissa Paulo. Although the finished product is a combination of three days of filming, the movie takes place in real-time. Shooting started every evening at 6.34pm, and each shoot was compressed by about 30 seconds to factor in the timing of the sun. "We’re going to just film a moving play for a week as if you’re going Monday through Thursday on your run of your play," is what de Araújo said she told her actors (via IndieWire).
"On the shooting days, I just said, 'Sleep in, rest, and then we’ll have our safety meeting, showtime, and lunch,'" the director continued. "I’d tell everyone to go to the bathroom before we start because no one’s going to have a pee break for about two hours, and then we go."
Similar "one shot" movies in the past have included the thriller Victoria, Sam Mendes' 1917, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. Soft & Quiet is due to hit the big screen on November 4. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming movies on the horizon, in 2022 and beyond.
