Two scenes of the thriller A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) stick out for me. The film has amassed a major box office collection after its first weekend, outperforming the first two films in the franchise. The story follows Samira, a terminally ill woman who struggles to survive in New York City after the monsters, who can detect the slightest sound from miles away, wreak havoc in the metropolitan hub.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but thought I’d share a couple of scenes that were particularly moving. One comes when Samira and a companion, Eric, narrowly escape the monsters through an opening in the ground that leads them into the sanctuary of a cathedral, where people are silently praying in the pews. They spend a while recuperating, physically and spiritually, in this small haven of beauty, silence, and sacredness, where even the horrors of the prior few days haven’t managed to infiltrate.

Another scene shows Samira going out on the empty street after the attacks and stumbling on a bookstore where many of the titles have scattered on the sidewalk. She picks up a book by African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler (1947-2006). A former poet and writer herself, she silently cherishes a moment of connection with the book and its author.

I thought these scenes were powerful messages that even in the worst of circumstances, with death lingering on literally every corner, the human soul still gravitates and is sustained by the spiritual. The characters in A Quiet Place have to put all their mental and physical resources into survival, but the film deftly shows that without contact with culture, with spaces that protect a devotion to the transcendent, human beings will starve in spirit.

Perhaps this is something Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) would agree with in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Survival is more than staying alive. Those who can connect with a source of meaning beyond the material pain of the world are the ones who will stay alive in body and spirit.

A Quiet Place: Day One is now playing in theaters nationwide.