>>REVIEW
THE QUIET
STARRING: Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle
DIRECTED BY Jamie Babbit
Opens Friday, September 1
The Plaza
What a mess. By the end of The Quiet, it’s hard to judge what genre of film director Jamie Babbit (But I’m a Cheerleader) set out to make – is it social satire, high school drama or a thriller? Did the studio drag its claws through it until there was only an incomprehensible mess of shrill voices, ass and incest?
The ridiculous plot involves a disturbed deaf girl named Dot (Camilla Belle, fresh from her star-making turn in When a Stranger Calls) who comes to live with an even more deeply disturbed family after her father dies in a car accident. Amongst other things, Dot can play a fine "Moonlight Sonata" (get it – Beethoven, deaf girl) and she also likes to cry over the baggie of her dead father’s ashes and lick at them. Yuck.
The matriarch of the household isn’t pill-popping dummy mummy Olivia (Edie Falco), but daughter Nina (Elisha Cuthbert, hilariously voted in the recent Fast Forward Best of Calgary poll as best local whatever, from Scoop – remember that? – and The Girl Next Door), a cheerleading sadist who hates the new intruder in her home and, well, everything. High school is hard. It’s even harder when your best friend keeps bugging you to pop your cherry, which Nina would do, except, well… her dad Paul (Martin Donovan) already has.
Soon, poor Dot becomes a post-it note for everyone’s disturbing secrets, including Nina’s plan to kill her father. Crying jags and horniness ensue.
The Quiet is so bizarre and poorly executed it almost reaches the level of great satire – which, even if unintentional, would be fine. But Babbit half-heartedly tries to inject rote thriller conventions at the most inopportune moments, and those details that would add to the suspense are glaringly obvious. The film is muddy and static, making the squeamish details (Nina describing licking her daddy’s nipples until he comes) maudlin, campy and disturbing. It feels unfinished, confused – the actors look like they’ve been caught during rehearsal, consistently playing against the shaky, skeletal plot.
Perhaps it contains some truths. There’s an accurate depiction of first-time sex in all its embarrassing, notice-that-distant-look-in-her-eye glory. And being a sex maniac with a learning disability must be tough. Be scared, be very scared. |
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