Worth: $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Catherine Clinch, Kate Nic Chonaonaigh, Michael Patric, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Joan Sheehy
Intro:
… a rare film in its capacity to affect an audience.
Everything that is presented in The Quiet Girl – from DOP Kate McCullough’s rustic Irish landscape, to Stephen Rennicks’ whisper of a soundtrack, to the down-to-earth performances of the cast – aims for subtle realism above all else.
As the audience watches young Cáit (Catherine Clinch giving quite the masterclass for a debut actress) sent off to the house of a distant cousin (Carrie Crowley as all things radiant and loving) to be taken care of while her mother is preparing to give birth yet again, the film functions much as she does: Not saying much, and yet also saying everything in that silence.
From there, it’s a matter of contrast between the crowded but neglectful house of Cáit’s birth parents (even using dialect to evoke English/Irish cultural schisms in the conversations between Cáit and her father), and the roomy but intimate warmth of her temporary foster parents. Much like a frog in a slow boiling pot, it’s a warmth that slowly builds up and isn’t immediately noticeable. Bathing, hair brushing, picking out clothes, gathering water from the well; a lot of small things, but which ring out through the frame like the loudest klaxon ever devised.
Before watching this, you might laugh at the idea of a simple biscuit being enough to bring you to tears, but you certainly won’t be afterwards.
It’s an interesting way of emphasising how childhood interactions, even the most seemingly inconsequential, can have a major impact on development. Watching Cáit slowly but surely come out of her shell and embrace the love she receives in that house is at once heart-warming and quietly tragic, knowing why she’s there in the first place. For as much overlap that exists in the Venn diagram between those who can be parents and those who should be parents, there also exists a gap wide enough to swallow a child whole.
The Quiet Girl is a rare film in its capacity to affect an audience. It is presented in an unassuming, delicate, verging-on-soporific fashion, but that ends up being the most effective approach for the story being told, showing how even the simplest of gestures can mean the world to someone else. It might move a little too softly for some, but it has its ways of rewarding patience.
