At the 95th Oscars, held on March 12, there was a huge scramble in all categories, mainly thanks to the fact that in the year 2022, it is something brutal how many good films came to the big screen. The statuette for best film is a sci-fi movie that is not at all Oscar-compatible, the Everything, everywhere, all the time brought it, whose female lead, Michelle Yeoh, won best actress at the age of 60, but Brendan Fraser The whaleyes, Jamie Lee Curtis’ sausage-fingered clerk and Guillermo del Toro reimagined Pinocchiothey were also memorable.
The great achievements could be listed endlessly, but let’s also mention that although there was no Hungarian candidate, this time there was also a real melee between brilliant works in the category of best international feature film: the German World War I film, In the West, the situation is unchanged in addition to one of the best courtroom dramas of recent years, that Argentina, 1985, about the boyhood of the Belgians near showing the traveling donkey of the Poles YEAH and the shockingly beautiful from Ireland The quiet girl they competed with each other.
It is true that in the end the best international feature film is the one that brings the horror of the First World War to Netflix and the Saving Private Ryan, as well as The elite squad In the West, which was strongly inspired by his narrative style, the situation remained the same, presented in Hungary on March 16 The quiet girl likewise a flawless work of its kind.
We even dare to venture that in the competition between the two perfect films, this Irish drama should have finished ahead.
Mainly because a In the West, the situation is unchanged, it’s easy to see that it builds heavily on its great predecessors, using similar panels, cutscenes, and music as our old big war favourites. Of course, this is not a mistake, nostalgia is always good for the soul. However, compared to this The quiet girl brings something unusually beautiful and intimate to cinemas. Something that is good for the soul of movie lovers from any background, culture, or profession.
The quiet girl takes us to the early 80s, to Ireland, and we can peek into the life of a nine-year-old girl, Cáit (Catherine Clinch). Although he lives in an idyllic environment, the child’s everyday life is not at all fairytale-like: his mother is unable to keep order in the large family, and his father is a rude man suffering from addictions. If all that wasn’t enough, Cáit is also bullied at school, and his brothers are also quite hostile towards him – but he stands up, literally with his mouth shut. Cáit is a quiet little girl, a good child, who bears the injustices that happen to her with the utmost patience. The situation changes a lot when the parents decide to send the girl to the woman’s cousin for the summer to take care of her.
Here, Cáit confronts her that her life could be the exact opposite of the current one, when her mother’s cousin, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley), turns to her with endless love and care, and although the ice is harder to break between them, she and her husband, Seán (Andrew Bennett), the little girl slowly makes friends.
The greatest strength of Colm Bairéad’s direction is that it is as simple as it is a great film. The quiet girl it’s a story that can be easily absorbed by anyone, it’s easy to identify with the characters and their situation. Among the viewers, there are certainly those who have been taken to relatives’ homes in the summer and felt much better there than at home. In the end, he was terribly sorry that he had to leave. The creator brings the atmosphere of the summers experienced through the eyes of a child to the canvas in a great way, and at the end, our hearts are torn out of place when we have to say goodbye to these flesh-and-blood figures, who are almost palpably close.
As for the implementation, the 4:3 aspect ratio guarantees that during the one and a half hour playing time, we really feel as if we are peeking through a window at the little girl and her relatives who are finally enjoying the summer. We are intruders, in an extremely intimate tale, but at the same time we don’t feel ashamed for a moment. Thanks to the fact that it is filled with cutscenes and settings that can be compared to a painting The quiet girl that you feel like you are in a gallery while watching it. Hats off to photographer Kate McCullough and her team.
We would not have expected such a restrained, quiet and minimalist film drama to paint beautifully and engulf the screen.
We highly recommend that anyone who knows The quiet girl watch it in original audio, because the Irish spoken by the characters is beautifully jingle-bong. Sometimes it’s as if the actors are reciting a poem, but this is also true for the dialogues in English. Colm Bairéad, who also wrote the screenplay, composed the dialogues with high artistic sophistication, with such ancient word order and linguistic feats that they are a pleasure to listen to in themselves.
On top of all this, the actors are spectacularly grateful for the trust, Carrie Crowley, who plays the surrogate mother, brings at least as much elemental play as Catherine Clinch, who plays the role of Cáit. Anyway, it will be worth paying attention to the title character of the film in the coming years, the young talent may have a great future ahead of him, who almost licks the skin of the restrained, spoiled child. Cáit’s character doesn’t sound exciting at all on paper, even though her personality is very complex: it’s simply impossible to decide whether she listens and tolerates because she’s extremely smart and rises above her surroundings, or she’s simply a pious soul.
The quiet girl a film that bravely ventures into poetic depths and is beautiful in its own way, which mercilessly crushes you at the end. Those who are more sensitive should pack a good amount of tissues with them. You will need it. Because as recently presented Once upon a summer it ends with a big slap, so something similar happens here. There is no drastic snap, but it still touches one’s soul. Colm Bairéad balances very well that The quiet girl don’t cross over into kitsch, and thanks to the great overall performance of the cast, there’s never a moment of that danger. Instead, we get a drama with the smell of life, full of kindness and sadness, with a unique tone.
10/10
The Quiet Girl is currently in theaters.
:focal(867x406:877x396):watermark(cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/BJHEN36IPZENPF43EEHTEVACCM.png,0,-0,0,100)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/UGZP6YFOY5HVLAKKJHOJ54CG7A.png)
