ViewGuide

Created Mar 09, 2008 06:01PM PST • Edited Mar 09, 2008 06:01PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Disturbing and difficult to stomach as it gazes upon the flawed inner workings of a family dynamic (read: incest, pill-popping and murder), Jamie Babbit’s disturbing “The Quiet” shall understandably divide audiences, but should be seen anyway. Artistically filmed and hauntingly told, the film looks upon 16-year-old deaf mute Dot (Camilla Belle) as she enters into the existence of Deer family with life-altering effect. Her new stepsister Nina (Elisha Cuthbert), for one thing, regularly has sex with lecherous father Paul (Martin Donovan), while Nina’s mother Olivia (Edie Falco) has long-since resorted to popping pills to deal with the knowledge that her husband is having a sexual relationship with his own daughter in lieu of being intimate with his wife. It is fascinating and unnerving to watch Babbit’s bleak tale unfold, before and after the point that Nina makes it clear to Dot (who may or may not be deaf) that she intends to murder her father.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   The acting performances are uniformly on-target. Camilla Belle does an excellent job as Dot, keeping the viewer in the dark about the validity of her deafness and muteness very convincingly. Elisha Cuthbert, too, is mesmeric as Nina, whose tough exterior hides a dark secret that she only feels able to come to terms with by eliminating the primary cause at all costs. Martin Donovan is creepy and repellent as Paul, even as his character begins to realise what he is engaging in is dangerously sick and depraved. Finally, Edie Falco is devastating, heartbreaking as Olivia, whose world has been torn apart in spite of her attempts to make herself believe everything is okay.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The direction by Jamie Babbit is top-drawer, visually impressive while handling a gritty story in just the right way. The script by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft is great, and the musical score only makes the film more intoxicating.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.3

    The rudeness isn’t too obscene, while the one major instance of violence comes as a singular example of such. The sex, while massively revealing in the visual sense, is disturbing enough in it’s context that it can reasonably be described as explicit.

17. Sex Explicit 5.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Salty 2.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.2

23. Biological Glib 1.1

24. Physical Natural 1.0