Unless you’re an Oscar fanatic, the nominees for Best International Feature may never make your watchlist. Unfortunately, sometimes that means you miss out on great films like 2020’s Quo Vadis, Aida? or 2018’s Never Look Away. While this year’s nominees feature some strong contenders, one that should not go unnoticed is Ireland’s submission, The Quiet Girl.
Adapted from Claire Keegan’s novel Foster, it follows Cáit (Catherin Clinch), a shy, young girl whose parents are so busy taking care of her siblings and, in her father’s case, carrying on extramarital affairs, that they scarcely pay her any attention. When her mother discovers she’s pregnant again, they decide to send Cáit to spend the summer on her relatives’ farm. Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley) is nurturing and patient. When Cáit has an accident in the middle of the night, she doesn’t make a big deal of it, just cleans up and doesn’t embarrass Cáit. By contrast, Seán (Andrew Bennett) is distant at first, but he and Cáit form a gentle rapport as she helps him complete his work each day. Surrounded by idyllic natural beauty and a loving home, Cáit blossoms, but she soon discovers there’s a tragic past hiding behind the Kinsellas’ kindness.
The first thing that strikes you about The Quiet Girl is its visual style. When the film starts, the images and locations are drab, dark and a little frightening even; they convey how tentatively Cáit moves through the world. However, as soon as Cáit joins the Kinsellas, cinematographer Kate McCullough suffuses the images with warmth. The sunlight always sparkles through the trees, the grass is a vibrant green and even a space as potentially depressing as a barn feels inviting and cozy.
More importantly, McCullough and director Colm Bairéad seem to shoot exclusively from low angles, constantly places the viewer in Cáit’s perspective. Because of that choice and Clinch’s watchful, subtle performance, it soon becomes clear that while Cáit may be quiet, she’s very observant and clever—it’s just that nobody takes the time to understand her. So, it’s satisfying then to see Eibhlin so attentive and kind to her. For her part, Crowley conveys enormous tenderness onscreen. Eiblin feels like the platonic ideal of a mother: infinitely patient, attentive and with a bottomless well of love driving her desire to care for Cáit. Taken as is, she could almost feel too perfect, but The Quiet Girl earns that goodness by giving the Kinsellas a devastating backstory.
It would be wrong to reveal that backstory rather than allow Bairéad, who also adapted the script, to unfurl it himself, but suffice to say that once it’s revealed, it explains why Seán seems almost frightened to interact with Cáit early on. However, that initial standoffishness is what makes his and Cáit’s eventual relationship so rewarding. The first time Seán makes Cáit run down the road to the mailbox while timing her, it feels like he’s turning a chore into a game to hide the fact that he doesn’t want to do it himself. By the film’s end, though, it’s much more, something they can both enjoy and take pride in as she gets faster and faster.
Indeed, Cáit and the Kinsellas’ relationship is built on small connections like that and while it can leave the movie feeling slight in the moment, it’s in the way the film accumulates those acts of love that it gains its power. As Eibhlin notes at one point, summer must end and as beautiful as the days are in The Quiet Girl, the characters and audience are always aware of how fleeting they are too. It’s precisely that precariousness that makes the love they form so meaningful and even as they all grow happier, Bairéad creates an underlying sense of foreboding that’s impossible to ignore.
Still, even with that twinge of fear, it’s impossible to deny what a lovely and engrossing film The Quiet Girl is. It’s certainly one of the softer, sweeter nominees of the year, but just as the Kinselllas’ kindness has the power to change Cáit’s life, it’s the film’s beating heart that makes it stand out.
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