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The Quiet (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:91
Fresh:20
Rotten:71
Average Rating:4/10
Consensus: This psychological thriller's talented cast is undercut by leaden pacing and a problematic plot.
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Jamie Babbitt (GILMORE GIRLS) makes his feature debut with this suburban melodrama tinged with the trappings of exploitation films and Gothic horror. Dot (Camilla Belle, THE CHUMSCRUBBER) is a deaf... Jamie Babbitt (GILMORE GIRLS) makes his feature debut with this suburban melodrama tinged with the trappings of exploitation films and Gothic horror. Dot (Camilla Belle, THE CHUMSCRUBBER) is a deaf and mute girl with a troubled past: her mother died when she was seven, and now her deaf father has been run over by a truck. Things get much worse for Dot, however, when she moves in with the Deer family, who make no attempt to hide their dark secrets from her. Patriarch Paul Deer (Martin Donovan) is having an incestuous relationship with his cheerleader daughter, Nina (Elisha Cuthbert, LOVE, ACTUALLY), who spends much of her time lashing out at the new addition to the family. Mother Olivia remains oblivious, shrouded in a haze of pills. Slowly, the two girls come to a tenuous understanding with one another, united in the secrets they share. The shocking conclusion is unexpectedly lurid given the quietness of the film's first half, and the two actresses carry the material beautifully. The coldly lit interior of the family home, which is undergoing renovations, ,creates an utterly creepy backdrop and sets the mood for this tone poem of suburban distress. [More]
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Edie Falco, Martin Donovan
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Edie Falco, Martin Donovan, Shawn Ashmore
Director: Jamie Babbitt
Director: Jamie Babbitt
Screenwriter: Abdi Nazemian, Micah Schraft
Composer: Jeff Rona
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Reviews for The Quiet
The fatalistic woe becomes an indie film mockery. It's truly adolescent.
Illustrate[s], once and for all, that it's possible for a film to be soooo slow and ponderous it can appear, at times, to come to a dead stop.
What on the surface initially seems like your typical bitchy blonde-versus-ostracized newcomer teensploit is merely this taut psychological thriller's point of departure for the exploration of a more sobering set of circumstances.
The film's producers would like us to keep this quiet... this is supposed to be a thriller, but the only time we were thrilled was when it was over.
Starts with an overwritten voice-over and ends with events so baffling as to seem satirical.
The Quiet is the kind of bad filmmaking that makes me lament that I blew a couple of hours of my life seeing it.
The next "American Beauty". The film expunges every inch of emotion from its actors shells - particularly marvellous newcomer Camilla Belle, last seen in the "When A Stranger Calls" remake, and former "24" cutie Elisha Cuthbert, whose never been better"
In retrospect, it is Belle who manages to acquit herself best with a role that never quite makes sense, but affords her some expressive, silent sequences. Surely she will find other film work and then quietly drop The Quiet from her biography.
Perhaps future generations of film scholars will embrace The Quiet as a B-movie that problematizes the oppressive gaze, but for now, it's a misfire.
An uneven satire/black comedy that lurches from serious drama to black comedy and back again.
One strength of The Quiet is that it does not deal exploitatively with the incest/sexual abuse issue in its quest to generate tension.
Babbit starts with loud caricature and lathers on a lecherous tone with a lesbian subtext.
At this advanced level of sophistication, one starts to wonder if Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft's screenplay was written entirely in capital letters. Or perhaps crayon?
The latest example of a creepy new subgenre, the Sundance exploitation film.
Perversely sordid, some of the creepy soft-core scenes cross the lurid line of bad taste.
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