In an awards season plot twist befitting a science fiction thriller, Hulu’s extraterrestrial home invasion film Nobody Will Save You has managed to sneak past more traditionally buzzed-about contenders and beam up an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Television Movie. If you are wondering whether you accidentally stumbled into an alternate timeline where genre films regularly receive critical acclaim, rest assured you are still in this universe. The Television Academy simply decided to shake things up a bit this year.
The film, led by the almost entirely wordless performance of Kaitlyn Dever, made headlines last fall not just for its low dialogue count but also for the high number of alien encounters. Directed by Brian Duffield, the film dropped on Hulu with relatively little fanfare, a modest arrival that somehow evolved into sleeper hit status. It turns out a single woman battling creepy spacelings without the benefit of a functional support system or even a full sentence can capture voters’ imaginations. Perhaps they appreciated the quiet.
The film’s Emmy recognition came without any notable awards campaign, press tour or even a perfunctory interview montage. In fact, when Duffield heard about the nomination on July 17, he responded with the sort of charming candidness generally reserved for text messages between confused cousins. “I was like, ‘How has this happened?’” he told IndieWire. “Emmy nominations usually come with, you know, a little bit of like, ‘Hey this might happen.’ We had none of that.” In fairness, he may not have had time to lobby considering he was busy making movies about teenage assassins and giant spiders.
Dever, too, contributed to the surprise factor by not launching an aggressive awards campaign of the sort that might include Very Meaningful Instagram posts or an early morning Zoom interview in soft lighting. Her near-silent performance, however, did generate a fair amount of critical buzz, with reviewers praising her ability to communicate full-bodied dread while saying roughly three words. It helps, of course, when your character’s life is being upended by the intergalactic equivalent of break-in burglars who also abduct cows.
The Emmy race for TV Movie this year includes some heavy hitters with proper marketing budgets and dialogue, such as Fire Island, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas. Against this formidable brigade of fully spoken content, Nobody Will Save You may appear an underdog. Then again, if a movie full of frightened whispers and elongated close-ups can land an Emmy nod, perhaps awards voters were simply tired of people talking so much.
Some say talk is cheap, but apparently silence is Emmy-nominated.