After the human race has been wiped out, Del lives in an empty town, content in his solitude and the utopia he has methodically created for himself, until he meets young Grace, who wants to stay with him.
The filmmakers’ handling of the surprises has a narrative deftness and visual cleverness that is legitimately unbalancing. It also adds a blast of dark comedy to the proceedings.
I Think We’re Alone Now is a tone poem of a movie, telling its story with lush, vivid imagery, and quiet, nuanced performances. Its slow, methodical pacing may not appeal to all moviegoers, and the film’s final act doesn’t entirely work. But it’s nevertheless a beautiful meditation on loneliness and the walls we put up to deal with grief and loss.
As always, Dinklage is exquisite in a mostly silent performance that conveys the pain and survivor’s guilt Del has bottled up inside him following the incident.
In the end, I Think We’re Alone Now isn’t very interested in constructing a mythology or exploring the apocalypse itself. It’s more of a relationship drama, one that works as a showcase for two great performances against a post-apocalyptic backdrop that ups the stakes
Once I Think We’re Alone Now establishes that Grace and Del represent love versus stability, the film doesn’t have a convincing way to reconcile the two.