The Quiet
| Year: | 2005 |
| Production Co: | Andrea Sperling Productions |
| Studio: | Sony |
| Director: | Jamie Babbit |
| Cast: | Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Martin Donovan, Edie Falco, Shawn Ashore |
A beautiful looking, beautifully shot, narratively disappointing thriller. It shows great promise as deaf mute teen Dot (Belle) moves in with the Deer family. Mother Olivia (Falco) is tranked to the gills most of the time, precocious hottie daughter Nina (Cuthbert) is too cool to want the freaky Dot around, and there's something not right about creepy Dad Paul (Donovan).
Dot soon finds everyone telling her their secrets because she can't hear, exorcising their demons safely - a huge point to the story that isn't made clear enough. Hot guy at school Connor (Ashmore) tells her how often he beats off, Paul tells Dot he's sick, and Nina tells Dot she's going to murder her father because her and him are sleeping together.
Dot just wants to keep her head down and grieve over her own father, killed in an accident and the reason she's living with the Deers, but she finds herself caught up in the family's filthy secrets of incest and drugs. To make matters even more complicated, is Dot really deaf at all?
The idea was strong but it was clumsily executed thanks to poor editing of the scenes that make up the story but the picture is absolutely gorgeous, the antithesis of the grimy, blood-soaked, handheld camera action that's so popular among filmmakers today.
It's all clean lines, cool blue light and blemishless skin with even the blood looking poetic and sumptuous. Every frame looks like art, and it's just a shame the story didn't live up to such fantastic cinematography and two such beautiful young women.
Dot soon finds everyone telling her their secrets because she can't hear, exorcising their demons safely - a huge point to the story that isn't made clear enough. Hot guy at school Connor (Ashmore) tells her how often he beats off, Paul tells Dot he's sick, and Nina tells Dot she's going to murder her father because her and him are sleeping together.
Dot just wants to keep her head down and grieve over her own father, killed in an accident and the reason she's living with the Deers, but she finds herself caught up in the family's filthy secrets of incest and drugs. To make matters even more complicated, is Dot really deaf at all?
The idea was strong but it was clumsily executed thanks to poor editing of the scenes that make up the story but the picture is absolutely gorgeous, the antithesis of the grimy, blood-soaked, handheld camera action that's so popular among filmmakers today.
It's all clean lines, cool blue light and blemishless skin with even the blood looking poetic and sumptuous. Every frame looks like art, and it's just a shame the story didn't live up to such fantastic cinematography and two such beautiful young women.