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The Quiet (2005)

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Overall Rating 61%
Overall Rating
Ranked #3,762
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Following the death of her father, a teenage Dot moves into the home of her godparents and their teenage daughter Nina. Dot arrives wrapped up in the silence of being deaf. She finds a different kind of silence waiting for her in her new home, for this home is a place with a dark secret involving Nina and her father. At first, Dot and Nina seem to be polar opposites. However, they gradually realize how much they have in common. Bringing them together catalyzes a series of events in which both reveal their secrets and shed their double lives. A violent consummation almost destroys them. Yet they find hope for the future in the quiet after the storm. --IMDb
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Review by bluemeanie
Added: September 6, 2006
This is one of those instances when I walked in the theatre knowing very little about the film I was about to see, and that film was "The Quiet", a new thriller by director Jamie Babbit, best known for his film "But I'm A Cheerleader" and his contributions to the show "Nip/Tuck". This was just one of those films that had flown off my radar (a rarity these days) and not caused enough commotion to captivate my interests. This surprises me, now having seen the film. "The Quiet" deals with some of the most shockingly dark subject matter imaginable, and it features some scenes that are just difficult to watch, borderline impossible for some. I was sitting in the theatre with a middle-aged man and three teenage girls (eerily similar to the teenage girls depicted in the film). I guess the man thought he was bringing his daughter and her friends to "She's All That" - the trailers are somewhat deceiving to people who don't know better. After about forty-five minutes, the father and the three girls left, the father looking visibly upset and the girls looking more shocked than not. I don't think any of them knew what they were getting into with "The Quiet". They saw Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle and Shawn Ashmore and just assumed it would be another cutesy teen romp about fashion and friends and cheerleading. There is cheerleading...and friends...and even a little incest.

Martin Donovan and Edie Falco star as Paul and Olivia Deer, a middle-aged couple who have a daughter named Nina (Elisha Cuthbert). Paul is an architect and Olivia an interior decorator with an addiction to pills. The film opens with us learning that the Deer family has taken in a deaf girl named Dot (Camilla Belle), whose father was recently killed. Paul and Olivia were her godparents and feel obligated to raise her now that both her mother and father are dead. Dot just doesn't fit in. She does not speak, cannot hear, and is slightly more odd than necessary. At one point, she opens up a bag containing her father's ashes and rubs them over her face. Talk about parental love. As the film progresses, we start to learn more dark secrets about the Deer family - more about how Olivia stays unconscious most of the time, and how Paul sneaks into his daughter's bedroom at night to take advantage of his 'fatherly duties'. This is the subject matter that makes "The Quiet" so disturbing and so shocking to watch. This is primarily because the scenes between Paul and Nina are treated with such normality. Both of them know what they are doing is wrong...and terrible...but neither one can stop what they are doing. Nina also begins to suspect that Dot isn't what she seems to be. As all the supporting characters start confiding in Dot's silence, secrets start coming to light.

Back to the subject matter - this film is not for everyone. In fact, this film is not for most people. It contains some of the most disturbing scenes imaginable, and it does so in a very realistic and very sinister manner. Do not go in expecting "Saved" or "Thumbsucker", because this is not those films. In "The Quiet", we are introduced to very flawed characters as they try to go about their lives, all of them keeping secrets from those around them. Dot has been hiding that fact that she actually can hear and speak - she has been taking refuge in this supposed handicap because it helps her feel the way she wants to feel - invisible. Nina has been hiding the relationship she shares with her father that goes beyond parent/child - she says that she loves her father, and hates him too. She hates what he does to her, but also enjoys it. Paul has a very bizarre scene in which he creeps into Dot's room late one night and confides to her, while she is sleeping, that he is sick and hoped that her coming to live with them would change things - would change the way he behaved. Olivia's character is given the least amount of attention, for we are given her problems head-on from the beginning. We see her taking pills, passing out in the floor, and walking around the house dazed and confused. And, even Connor (Shawn Ashmore) is given his own bit of revelation, as he confides in Dot that he has a learning disability, is a virgin, and fantasizes about her naked quite often.

Shot beautifully, "The Quiet" looks like an indie flick, but feels like a mainstream thriller. This is not the typical picture you see Sony Picture Classics releasing - it just isn't. Director Jamie Babbit skillfully uses this dark subject matter to create a compelling and fascinating story, that works primarily because of the wholly apt script from Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft. The film is a very astute look into the lives of these adolescents and their parents, much like Babbit's most memorable effort, "But I'm A Cheerleader". Babbit also managed to cast this film remarkably well. Camilla Belle, whom I loathed in both "When A Stranger Calls" and "The Chumscrubber", does a wonderful job as Dot, maybe because she doesn't speak for most of the film. Elisha Cuthbert is her equal as Nina, in a performance that should open a few more doors for the actress. Edie Falco delivers another fine performance, though her role could have been written a little better. Shawn Ashmore is as adorable as he was as Iceman and even managed to act a little here. But, it is the underrated Martin Donovan who really steals the show, proving once more why he deserves these kinds of lead roles in films, though he is consistently passed over. Along with films like "Saved" and "The United States of Leland", Donovan is amassing an impressive resume of indie work.

As a drama and a thriller, "The Quiet" works. It reminds me of a recent film I sat through entitled "The King", starring Gael Garcia Bernal as a young man who was trying to make his way in the world but was doing all the wrong things to get there. I didn't like that film. In "The Quiet", Dot is very much that same character - trying to make her way in the world after the death of her father, but keeping secrets and telling lies to do so. Dot is not an admirable character in the film, not for me anyways. Sure, she helps Nina in the end and does what all the audience wanted to do, but that does not take away the fact that she was intentionally manipulating others - earning their trust and learning their secrets. It does not matter if she was going to reveal them - they were never hers to hear. Shawn Ashmore's character has the most honest and heartfelt reaction to Dot at the end of the film, and I felt sorry for his character. "The Quiet" is a strong film, a disturbing film, and a pleasant surprise for this film critic, considering I knew nothing about it going in to the theatre. I am not sure if I would place this with the best films of 2006, but my mind might change down the road. At the very least, Martin Donovan deserves Best Supporting Actress consideration, as does this amazing script. "The Quiet" will unsettle you to your very core. Sometimes that feeling is nice.

8.5/10.
Tristan #1: Tristan - added August 9, 2007 at 10:55pm
Creeeeeepy. This movie made me feel pretty sick at times. But in a good way, where you know the movie is really affecting you. 8/10
pathum #2: pathum - added December 31, 2010 at 7:23am
Jamie Babbit is a SHE
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