The Quiet Girl ((INSTALL))
The Quiet Girl (Irish: An Cailín Ciúin [ənˠ ˈkalʲiːnʲ cuːnʲ]) is a 2022 Irish coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Colm Bairéad.[2][3] The dialogue is mostly in Irish. Set in 1981, the film follows a withdrawn nine-year-old girl who experiences a loving home for the first time when she spends the summer on a farm with distant relatives in Rinn Gaeltacht, County Waterford. The film was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
The Quiet Girl
In the summer of 1981, nine-year-old Cáit is one of many siblings, living with her impoverished and neglectful parents in rural Ireland. She struggles to fit in at school, including an incident where she is ashamed when a cup of tea is spilled onto her lap. With her mother pregnant again, it is decided to send their quiet daughter away to live with middle-aged distant cousin Eibhlín Cinnsealach (Kinsella) and her husband Seán.
As Cáit arrived at the Cinnsealach home with no luggage, Eibhlín immediately welcomes her into the Cinnsealach home, showing her love and teaching her how to do chores around the house and farm. She shows Cáit a well on the property, claiming that the water has healing powers, while warning that the well is deep and to exercise caution when retrieving water from it. She says not to speak of it and Cáit asks, "Is it a secret?" Eibhlín places Cáit in a spare bedroom, where she later fears an adult entering the room, and eventually wets the bed. Initially, Eibhlín dresses her with boys' clothes left in the wardrobe. She later buys Cáit new girls' clothes.
When the Cinnsealachs later pick Cáit up from the neighbour's house, they notice her withdrawn demeanour and ask what the neighbour said to her. Cáit tells them the truth, which quietly upsets them, but they do not deny the neighbour's story.
A few days later, Eibhlín and Seán drive Cáit back to her home. Her mother barely acknowledges her daughter's return, and her father immediately chastises Cáit for sneezing. After a tension-filled conversation between the adults, with Eibhlín telling Cáit's parents that the girl is welcome to stay with them at any time, they reluctantly bid farewell to Cáit and begin to drive off.
While watching the car disappear down the long driveway, Cáit suddenly sprints toward it, managing to catch up to the couple as Seán is closing the gate. They embrace, while Eibhlín sobs quietly in the car. As Cáit looks over Seán's shoulder, she sees her father angrily marching toward them and says "Daddy" to alert Seán to his presence. After a brief pause, she says "Daddy" again.
The story is set in 1981, although given the remoteness of its rural Irish setting, it could easily be taking place decades earlier. The dialogue is subtitled, because the characters speak mostly Irish, a language we rarely hear in movies. The quiet girl of the title is named Cáit, and she's played with aching sensitivity by a gifted first-time actor named Catherine Clinch.
With too many mouths to feed and another baby on the way, it's decided that Cáit will spend the summer with relatives. Her mother's older cousin, Eibhlín, and her husband, Seán, live a three-hour drive away; they're played, wonderfully, by Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett. From the moment Eibhlín welcomes Cáit into their house, she lavishes the girl with kindness and attention. She engages her in conversation, involves her in household chores and responds in the most loving way when Caít wets the bed on her first night.
One of the most refreshing things about The Quiet Girl is that it doesn't treat silence as some problem that needs to be solved. When someone criticizes Cáit early on for being so quiet, Seán gently defends her, saying she "says as much as she has to say." And yet we see how Cáit gradually flourishes under her guardians' loving attention. Clinch's luminous performance shows us what it's like for a child to experience real, carefree happiness for the first time, whether it's Eibhlín offering Cáit a drink of crystalline water from the well near their house or Seán pressing a little pocket money into the girl's hands.
The Quiet Girl was written and directed by Colm Bairéad, an Irish filmmaker whose background is in documentaries. That may account in part for how exquisitely observed his first narrative feature is. Bairéad trusts the power of understatement, and that's a rare thing, given how prone so many films are to noise and over-explanation. Not many movies would focus on a character as unassuming as Cáit, but there's nothing small or insignificant about her story. Sometimes, it's the quietest movies that turn out to have the most to say.
"Rural Ireland 1981. A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one"
Parents need to know that The Quiet Girl is a captivating coming-of-age drama set in 1980s Ireland with occasional strong language and smoking. Adapted from a novella by Claire Keegan, the story focuses on a 9-year-old girl -- Cáit (Catherine Clinch) -- who's sent away from her family to live with distant relatives. Much of the dialogue is in Irish (with English subtitles for U.S. release), and the movie received an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film. Infrequent strong language includes "f--k" and "bastard." There's drinking and smoking, as well as references to gambling and characters seen betting on a card game. A child's death is mentioned, and an adult's dead body is shown in a coffin at a wake. The film has a slow, quiet pace that unfolds gradually, exploring the impact of empathy, compassion, and love.
Rural Ireland. 1981. Nine-year-old Cait is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. Quietly struggling at school and at home, she has learned to hide in plain sight from those around her. In his debut, director Colm Bairead tells the story of a girl who, away from her home, begins to blossom, but discovers one painful truth. The highest-grossing Irish language film ever; winner, Berlin Film Festival. (Ireland, 2022, 96m) 041b061a72