A Quiet Girl (2024)

A Quiet Girl

This one threw me for a loop. I could feel the lump in my throat within the first few minutes. By the last scene, I was bawling my eyes out. Why? The Quiet Girl is an deeply emotional movie, a story of empathy and connection. It’s also about how life just isn’t fair sometimes. Bad people have children. Good people lose their kids to accidents. It feels wrong, but it’s true. The universe can be so cold. But humans can also bring warmth into it. Beyond that, it’s spoken in Irish a language many moviegoers don’t often hear which is spoken so softly and beautifully that it adds to the tenderness of the whole thing.

Nine year old Cait (Catherine Clinch) feels ignored. She lives in a crowded house with several siblings and another baby on the way; she hardly speaks at all and always looks down at her shoes. Her parents send Cait away for the summer to live with a middle-aged cousin, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley), and her husband, Sean (Andrew Bennett).

They take to her pretty fast they don’t have any girls’ clothes so Cait has to wear old boys’ outfits from another kid who used to live there especially Eibhlín, who comes alive taking care of her, brushing her hair and showing her around the farm; Sean is more reluctant but eventually comes around too after seeing how much Eibhlín cares for her. They start realizing that Cait’s bedwetting problem stems from something happening back home but aren’t sure what to do about it; they also have a tragic secret that Cait accidentally finds out about later on down the line. Days go by; summer will soon end.

I was an elementary school teacher in America for 14 years; over that time, countless children were part of my classroom community: Most moved on; I never heard from them again. A small number, though, stayed connected with me like this girl, who reminded me of Cait.

I taught her in third and fourth grade; she went on to middle school while I moved on to a different elementary school. Years later, when she was 15, we reconnected on Twitter: I told her that my wife and I often thought about her and hoped she was doing well; we met up for lunch (with her mom’s permission) but I remember how little concern her mother showed at the time; it struck me as odd.

We saw her at least once a month for the next few years. Lunch and a movie became our thing. In early 2020, she called my wife in tears: Things weren’t going so well at home. A social worker had gotten involved; if there wasn’t a safe adult for her to stay with that night, they’d put her and her brother in foster care. We didn’t hesitate to open our home. It wasn’t an extended stay, just over a week or so until we tracked down other family members who we knew legally would be considered appropriate guardians for her; we would’ve kept them both if we could have.

When her family visited that night, I was destroyed. Never had I experienced pain like this. I’ve been through a lot of hurt but this was different. This was new — it touched somewhere inside me I’d never hurt before. I wanted to parent these kids, not teach them; but that couldn’t be the case. She did move in with another part of her family so we still kept in touch. Now she’s 20 and after a tumultuous first year out of high school she’s doing great; loves her job, just bought a car, lives with her boyfriend whose family is nearby & very supportive she calls my wife “mom” and for me alternates between “dad” or my last name minus the Mr from when she was my student.

The Quiet Girl made me feel that hurt again. When you see a child who is so perfect and learning about the world yet suffers at the hands of an adult who has neglected their duty to care for them properly… there’s no other feeling than ache for it. Children should be loved and cared for while shown how to become part of the world around them; adults are supposed to make things good for young people & hope they do better than us next time. Also can’t help but think about all those videos outta Gaza over the past couple months: children torn apart by war every way possible; kids screaming with heavy sobs for a mother crushed beneath a bomb; parents carrying what’s left of their children… lot of false talk about harm to children being vomited up by Conservatives, yet they don’t seem to shed a tear over these things.

Catherine Clinch gives an incredible performance as The Quiet Girl star. It’s her feature debut & she absolutely knocks it outta the park — restrained, emotional, beautiful work onscreen by this actress here! No wonder she won the Irish Oscar for Best Actress in A Feature Film That Was Also Called The Quiet Girl; the rest of cast is perfectly placed and gives equal performances supporting Catherine’s.

This is Colm Bairéad’s directorial debut & he doesn’t miss a beat. This is one of the best looking films of the year, camera picking up every rich detail & colorful hue onscreen full of greens and browns that feel alive. There’s also expert use of slow motion that adds some dramatic flourish to key moments in story… for a film clocking in around 90 minutes it feels full but not bloated; never tries to be maudlin, evokes genuine pathos at all times.

You will be shattered by the ending. My mind would be blown if someone could watch the last scene and not cry. Nobody knows what happens next; everyone knows what they feel love. The Quiet Girl is a movie about opening oneself up to love, moving past the pain of losing someone so that you can take something that seemed dead and bring it back to life again. People are going through so much hurt right now, and it’s so simple to just close off your heart and shut out the world. But how awful that would be. There are countless children in this world who desperately need love. We should care for them.

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