THE QUIET GIRL
IRELAND
Director: Colm Bairéad
Cast: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Michael Patric, Kate Nic Chonaonaigh
Genre: Family drama, Coming-of-age
94 minutes: Irish and English with English subtitles – 2022
Rating: 16 L
Rural Ireland, 1981. Nine-year-old Cait is neglected by her pregnant mother, boorish father and louder siblings. At school, she feels ignored. To alleviate her parent’s financial woes this quiet girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer. Slowly, in the care of this couple, Cáit blossoms and discovers a new way of living, but in this house where affection grows and there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one.
Colm Bairéad’s beautifully understated feature debut finds a young girl coming to terms with loss and the importance of family in rural Ireland. Similtaneously raw and profoundly empathetic, it is a story about childhood and the transformative power of love and human kindness. Amongst its numerous achievements The Quiet Girl won 7 awards at the Irish Film and Television Awards and then became the first Irish film to earn an Oscar nomination at the 2023 Academy Awards.
This is a movie about the extraordinary power of people who have the patience and generosity to listen to the soft-spoken, the uncertain, the insecure.
Jeffrey Overstreet, Looking Closer
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
A beautifully restrained yet emotionally resonant film that says more through hushed understatement than most do with frenzied melodramatic excess.
Frank Swietek, One Guy’s Opinion
… A film made up of precious details, little moments and emotional currents
Emiliano Basile, EscribiendoCine
One of the single most moving, heartfelt, and heartbreaking movies in the last decade.
David Fear, Rolling Stone
