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The nameless narrator of Claire Keegan's award-winning 2015 short story Foster  is a little girl, living in rural Ireland, sent to stay with relatives she's never met while her mother has yet another baby. Too many mouths to feed already. One might expect the story to unfold in a horror of abuse, the child thrown to the wolves. But it doesn't turn out that way. The childless couple shows her the first kindness and care she has ever experienced. She says, "I keep waiting for something to happen, for the ease I feel to end, but each day follows on much like the one before." Keegan's writing is rooted in details absorbed by the observant child. The child pieces together the world through fragments, things overheard or glanced. Foster  is masterful in evoking a child's point of view.

"The Quiet Girl," adapted for the screen and directed by Colm Bairéad , maintains this point of view admirably, for the most part, keeping the frame of reference narrowed to the world as seen through the girl's eyes. Bairéad has made some alterations to the source material, opening up the story a wee bit, with a prologue of sorts—her life at home, her bed-wetting, her tendency to wander away for hours at a time. The main change, however, is the most obvious. "The Quiet Girl" is an Irish language film, with 95% of the dialogue in Irish, and English words peppered in only occasionally (there are subtitles for both). "The Quiet Girl" (Irish title “An Cailín Ciúin”) is the first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Academy Award (this year's Best International Feature). It's a milestone for Irish-language film.

Now named Cáit ( Catherine Clinch ), the girl is a wary and watchful figure. She has survived her chaotic neglectful home life—her drunken father, her harried mother—by making herself as small and still as possible. Kate McCullough's sensitive cinematography pulls us into Cáit’s sometimes dissociated but always alert perspective. The focus is on the details: the trees whirring by outside the car in a dizzying blur, the high-flung blue sky peeping through, the inky-black darkness of a bar’s interior at midday, the way shafts of sunlight pierce through still pools of water. Adults are seen from below, or the side. They are unknowable mysteries to Cáit. 

It's clear from the production design—objects, cars, televisions—that “The Quiet Girl” doesn’t take place in current-day Ireland, but the year (1981) established in the novella with a mention of the hunger strikes going on in the North, isn't nailed down (unless I missed it). "The Troubles" are nowhere in evidence, and neither is the outside world. This is the timeless rural landscape, where the hay has to be brought in, the cows milked, the meals prepared, and Mass is attended every Sunday. Cáit lives in squalor and neglect at home, with a dad too busy drinking to make sure the hay is brought in on time. The house crawls with children, all girls. Cáit’s fate is decided without her knowing. One day she is driven down to Wexford and dropped off at a cousin of her mother’s.

Eibhlín ( Carrie Crowley ) and Seán ( Andrew Bennett ) are in their fifties, and they, too, have a farm. But their farm is well-run and orderly. Cáit stands in the immaculate well-lit kitchen and stares around her. She can’t believe such cleanliness and peace exists. It’s another world. Eibhlín takes one look at Cáit‘s dirty dress, dirty hands, and legs, and instantly takes charge. She bathes the child, shows her to her room, and asks if she wants the curtains drawn at night. Her manner is gentle and pained. Cáit has never known a thoughtful adult, has never been asked what she wants. Seán is quiet and distant, harder to read at first. Is he irritated at the child’s presence? He barely acknowledged her.

Cáit's new life begins. Eibhlín teaches her how to cook, clean, and gather water from the well. The ritual of daily tasks and the care given in the running of everyday life is soothing to Cáit. The film unfolds like a reverie. Light and shadow, bird sounds, fresh vegetables, the mirror-like water of the well ... McCullough and Bairéad patiently explore the environment, allowing it space to evoke, forcing us into Cáit‘s point of view.

Not much happens on the outside surface. She’s taken to a funeral. A gossipy woman interrogates Cáit about Eibhlín. But life is not made up of dramatic events. The characters here are not expressive people. But when Seán or Eibhlín do express themselves, it is with authenticity. Every word counts. The feelings underneath are enormous.

There is a backstory for Eibhlín and Seán—an event neither can speak of (and which is easily guessed), but the film isn’t about the big reveal. It’s the little things. A cookie placed on a table—without a word—brings an explosion of feeling and meaning. A cookie is not just a cookie. A serious chat by the sea on a moonlit night is profound and potentially life-altering. It is said that even one “witness” to a neglected child’s misery can make all the difference in that child’s future prospects. “The Quiet Girl” gives Cáit two witnesses. The impact of this isn’t stated outright—and Cáit will only realize it in retrospect—but the difference has been made. How we “get” this is all due to the patient care in which Bairéad allows the characters to reveal themselves. Nothing is rushed.

There is a monotony to some of the presentation—the repeated shots of the kitchen, the walk to the well, the daily chores, and Cáit’s wariness slowly melting into trust. The monotony is there for a reason and does serve a purpose, but a little goes a long way.

How little and how long it goes is made perfectly clear in the final sequence, which completely knocked me flat. It was only then I realized just how effectively “The Quiet Girl” did its work. The film works by stealth.

The Irish language is mandatory in Ireland’s school curriculum, but its history is one of suppression. Road signs in Ireland are bilingual, and there is an effort to keep the tradition intact, encouraging a cultural continuum. The history of Irish language films began in cinema’s first decades, with Robert Flaherty’s “Oidhche Sheanchais” (1935), the first Irish language sync sound film. (Long thought lost, it was recently discovered, and a fragment can be seen on YouTube.) Flaherty, famously, directed the “documentary”—quotation marks necessary—“Man of Aran” (1934), which is criticized to this day for Flaherty’s fictionalized version of Irish life, particularly the characters all speaking in English. Other notable entries in Irish-language films are George Morrison’s “Mise Éire” (1959)—a real documentary, this one about the 1916 Easter Revolution—Bob Quinn’s crime drama “Poitín”(1978), the first Irish-language narrative feature, and, more recently, Robert Quinn’s “Cré na Cille” and “Foscadh,” directed by Seán Breathnach. Other Irish films have used the Irish language alongside English, making them essentially bilingual. 

“The Quiet Girl” goes all the way and is groundbreaking for its language, as well as its success within a recent movement of accomplished Irish cinema. “An Cailín Ciúin” is significant for these cultural reasons but its power is encapsulated in the small insert shot of a cream-filled cookie placed on a table. In that moment, everything changes. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Available in theaters on February 24th. 

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Quiet Girl (2023)

Rated PG-13 for some strong language and smoking.

Catherine Clinch as Cáit

Carrie Crowley as Eibhlín

Andrew Bennett as Seán

Michael Patric as Da

Kate Nic Chonaonaigh as Mam

Joan Sheehy as Úna

• Colm Bairéad

Writer (based on the story "Foster" by)

• Claire Keegan

Cinematographer

• Kate McCullough
• John Murphy
• Stephen Rennicks

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This tender Irish drama proves the quietest films can have the most to say

Justin Chang

Catherine Clinch plays Cáit in The Quiet Girl. Super Lt hide caption

Catherine Clinch plays Cáit in The Quiet Girl.

The late film critic Roger Ebert once wrote, "What moves me emotionally is more often goodness than sadness." It's a sentiment I've always shared, and I thought about it again while watching the beautifully crafted Irish drama The Quiet Girl .

There's plenty of sadness in this tender story about a withdrawn 9-year-old who spends a fateful summer with two distant relatives. But the movie, adapted from a Claire Keegan story called Foster , doesn't rub your nose in the character's unhappiness. What brought me to tears more than once was the movie's unfashionable optimism — its insistence that goodness exists, and that simple acts of decency really can be life-changing.

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The story is set in 1981, although given the remoteness of its rural Irish setting, it could easily be taking place decades earlier. The dialogue is subtitled, because the characters speak mostly Irish, a language we rarely hear in movies. The quiet girl of the title is named Cáit, and she's played with aching sensitivity by a gifted first-time actor named Catherine Clinch.

Cáit is the shyest and most neglected kid in her poor farming family. Her short-tempered mother has her hands full taking care of Cáit's siblings, and her father is a gambler, a philanderer and an all-around lout. At home and at school, Cáit does her best to stay under the radar. It's no wonder that the first time we see her, the camera has to pan down to find her hiding beneath tall blades of grass.

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With too many mouths to feed and another baby on the way, it's decided that Cáit will spend the summer with relatives. Her mother's older cousin, Eibhlín, and her husband, Seán, live a three-hour drive away; they're played, wonderfully, by Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett. From the moment Eibhlín welcomes Cáit into their house, she lavishes the girl with kindness and attention. She engages her in conversation, involves her in household chores and responds in the most loving way when Caít wets the bed on her first night.

Seán is gruffer with Cáit at first, but he warms to her soon enough. There's a lovely little moment when, after angrily scolding her for wandering off by herself, Seán silently leaves a cookie on the table for her — an apology extended entirely without words. In their way, Eibhlín and Seán are as reserved as Cáit is, especially compared with some of their cruel, gossipy neighbors.

One of the most refreshing things about The Quiet Girl is that it doesn't treat silence as some problem that needs to be solved. When someone criticizes Cáit early on for being so quiet, Seán gently defends her, saying she "says as much as she has to say." And yet we see how Cáit gradually flourishes under her guardians' loving attention. Clinch's luminous performance shows us what it's like for a child to experience real, carefree happiness for the first time, whether it's Eibhlín offering Cáit a drink of crystalline water from the well near their house or Seán pressing a little pocket money into the girl's hands.

How Parents And Teachers Can Nurture The 'Quiet Power' Of Introverts

Seán and Eibhlín are clearly delighted by this temporary addition to their household, in part because it chases away some of the sorrow they've experienced in their own lives. The source of that sorrow isn't made clear right away, though you'll likely figure it out if you're paying close attention. When the truth does come out, it's treated with a gentle matter-of-factness that — much like the unfussy natural beauty of Kate McCullough's cinematography — deepens our sense of immersion in these characters' lives.

The Quiet Girl was written and directed by Colm Bairéad, an Irish filmmaker whose background is in documentaries. That may account in part for how exquisitely observed his first narrative feature is. Bairéad trusts the power of understatement, and that's a rare thing, given how prone so many films are to noise and over-explanation. Not many movies would focus on a character as unassuming as Cáit, but there's nothing small or insignificant about her story. Sometimes, it's the quietest movies that turn out to have the most to say.

Correction Feb. 24, 2023

An earlier version of this story misspelled the main character's name Cáit as Caít.

‘The Quiet Girl’ Is One of the Most Heartbreaking Movies in Ages

By David Fear

The girl is named Cáit. She’s 12 years old, doesn’t like attention, stays hidden and silent when she can. Living in the rural Irish countryside in the early 1980s, she’s the youngest of a brood belonging to parents that seem one perpetually short fuse away from exploding. Or rather, she was the youngest — her Ma is six months pregnant. As for her Da, he’s a largely absent, mostly glowering presence capable of inspiring a dread-inducing hush into the household upon entering. Even when he brings Cáit with him to a pub, he’s still just an ominous figure to her, yet another adult downing pints and yet another incentive to be neither seen nor heard.

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There is a sense that a clock is ticking somewhere, and this feeling of familial love is regrettably finite. The Quiet Girl knows this, and it knows that you know this. How it gets to where this story needs to end, however, is what separates it from every other melodrama that’s used the whole notion of angelic surrogate parents as a way of wringing your tear ducts dry. By the time we get to the climax, we can see that these three have changed, even if the notion of a permanent reset becomes a pipe dream. It’s also not giving anything away to say that it ends on a display of total and utter grace that’s also devastating, and may require theaters to thoroughly waterproof their floors before showings.

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‘The Quiet Girl’ Review: A Heartfelt, Beautifully Homespun Tale of a Lonely Irish Childhood

Colm Bairéad's well-crafted feature debut follows a summer of hesitant growth for a neglected girl from a rural farming background.

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There are different types of quiet. There’s the quiet of peace and serenity, and the quiet of repression and shame. There’s the quiet of contented, absorbing work. And there’s the quiet of fear, the kind of lonely silence a bullied child might retreat into when she hears the heavy tread of an impatient adult on the stairs, or the catcalling of other, brasher kids. Colm Bairéad ‘s gentle, straightforward, largely Irish-language “The Quiet Girl” has an ear finely attuned to all those types of hush, and to the tender feelings they can contain.

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Turns out, Eibhlín and Seán are almost as un-talkative as Cáit, though Eibhlín especially gives her a warm welcome and a much-needed bath. “If there are secrets in a house, there is shame in that house. There are no secrets in this house,” she tells Cáit kindly, brushing out her hair, forgiving her bed-wetting, doting on her in a way the girl has clearly never experienced. But while nothing is a secret, a lot goes unspoken, like the reason Cáit’s bedroom has choo-choo train wallpaper, and why the clothes she’s given are all shirts and trousers, such as a little boy might wear.

Set to Stephen Rennick’s sweet score, which tiptoes round the edges of the film’s airy sound design, the simplicity of the story and the desire to do right by all the characters (except perhaps a prying neighbor who is sketched rather cattily) is an undoubted strength. But this is also a romantic vision of the sadness that can settle around a solitary kid like a shawl on her shoulders, and on occasion the deep investment in the long silences and sorrowful gazes that mostly make up Cáit’s life can teeter close to preciousness. When it does, though, there’s always Clinch’s superbly modulated performance, and the way the compassionate camera lavishes on Cáit all the attention that quiet, nice kids like her rarely receive, to bring us back onside.

At a stretch, we could see in Cáit’s reticence some sort of analogy for her native Irish tongue — there’s a certain eloquence in having such an inarticulate character speak a language that was, and still is, in danger of being silenced. But the unwavering focus of Bairéad’s impressively controlled debut feature doesn’t really allow for much subtext, nor for much surprise. Even that doesn’t really matter: Though you can foretell the way the story must end right from the moment Seán bids Cáit a curt goodnight without even turning his head from the TV, the cumulative power of “The Quiet Girl” means that when that ending duly comes, it’s remarkably moving. For all the things that can be lost in the quiet, sometimes people can find each other there.

Reviewed in Berlin Film Festival (Generations), Feb. 22, 2022. Running time: 94 MIN. (Original title: "An Cailín Ciúin")

• Production: (Ireland) A Screen Ireland, TG4 and The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland presentation of an Inscéal production. (World sales: Rosa Bosch Films, Valencia.) Producer: Cleona Ní Chrualaoi. Executive producers: Dearbhla Regan, Máire Ní Chonláin.
• Crew: Director: Colm Bairéad. Screenplay: Colm Bairéad, based on the short story ‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan. Camera: Kate McCullough. Editor: John Murphy. Music: Stephen Rennicks.
• With: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Michael Patric, Kate Nic Chonaonaigh. (Irish, English dialogue)

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The Quiet Girl Reviews

Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl is one of 2022’s best films so far, thanks to its moving narrative, perfectly realised performances and evocative cinematography.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2024

“The Quiet Girl” is a perfect example about how an old-fashioned movie does not have to feel dated.

Full Review | Jun 2, 2024

The Quiet Girl is a heartbreaking tale but the rare snatches of beauty we sometimes encounter in this world are worth all of the heartbreak and then some.

Full Review | May 16, 2024

The film offers a unique experience as Cáit delves into this unknown world [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 3, 2024

This is filmmaking at its most alchemical, turning every ingredient to gold -- even if it is green, the vivid color of the lush trees everywhere on the Kinsellas’ farm, that is the color lingering behind your eyelids as the credits roll.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2023

In "The Quiet Girl", an adaptation of a short-story about a girl who is taken in by distant relatives, director Colm Báiread manages to reproduce a delicate melancholy without falling into melodramatic bullshit. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 3, 2023

The Quiet Girl is a really moving drama that knows how to communicate beyond words. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 7, 2023

The Quiet Girl is a small film that gets rid of dialogue and moves us through a refined cinematic language. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 31, 2023

The Quiet Girl is an intellectual film but by no means ascetic. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 17, 2023

Like its protagonist, the movie is also calm and quiet. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 17, 2023

For as gentle and earnest as The Quiet Girl is, the film is full of rage. An angry plea to give a damn about kids and to treat them with as much kindness as humanly possible. That is the bare minimum.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

There are no heavy hands here, from the thoughtful and poignant work of the cast to the dramatic beats of the story; it stirs up base questions about nature and nurture... and asks pointedly where Cait – and possibly any of us – truly belongs.

Full Review | Jul 10, 2023

... A film made up of details, little moments that encapsulate the internal emotional currents of its characters. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 8, 2023

The Quiet Girl is an impeccably made film, mysterious and harsh in its revelations, among which a disenchanted idea stands out... "you don't always find happiness with your biological family." [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | May 15, 2023

What’s most remarkable about “The Quiet Girl” is the detail Bairéad imbues to the Irish country life, and the emotional specificity he delivers in every scene.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2023

The film really shows a sense of realism as the girl adjusts to her surroundings and the relatives go about their day. It is also beautifully shot.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2023

I'd assumed this was a story about a girl who doesn’t speak. ... That isn’t, thank goodness, the case! This is a movie about the extraordinary power of people who have the patience and generosity to listen to the soft-spoken, the uncertain, the insecure.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 11, 2023

Beautifully restrained yet emotionally resonant...a lovely, touching little film that says more through hushed understatement than most do with frenzied melodramatic excess.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Apr 4, 2023

simple and beautiful in its moving evocation of human experience and the depth of its belief in the transformative power of human kindness

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 27, 2023

... akin to the literary source... Bairéad has created on screen a sparse and sensitive rendering of Keegan’s story, camera shots that are calm storytelling and restraints that convey emotional depth.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 25, 2023

Screen Rant

The quiet girl review: poignant, impactful oscar-nominated drama is a must-watch.

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In every awards season, buried underneath the biggest and most hotly-debated titles, there are some truly incredible hidden gems that might escape people's notice. While perhaps far from underrated, director Colm Bairéad's The Quiet Girl is certainly a treasure. The beautifully understated film is nominated in the Oscars' Best International Feature category for Ireland, and for good reason. This is a title that sneaks in and wiggles its way into viewers' hearts with its simple, uncomplicated story and manages to leave a searing impact. A standout of this year's awards race, The Quiet Girl is an earnest depiction of family and unexpected connections that lingers long after the credits roll.

Nine-year-old Cait (Catherine Clinch) is viewed as something of an oddity to those around her. One child of many within her over-sized family, Cait is withdrawn and has a tendency to wet the bed. With her mother expecting yet another child, Cait is sent to live with two distant relatives for the summer, the kindhearted Eibhlín Kinsella (Carrie Crowley) and her taciturn husband Seán (Andrew Bennett). Eibhlín welcomes Cait with open arms and the old clothes from the wardrobe, whereas Seán is less appreciative of Cait's presence. However, genuine, meaningful bonds soon emerge between Cait and her foster parents, leading to the reveal of a long-buried secret.

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The Quiet Girl is a sparse production. Bairéad, who also wrote the screenplay (itself based on the short story Foster by Claire Keegan), never overloads a scene with excessive dialogue or action. In the beginning, this serves to highlight Cait's loneliness. Bairéad stages scenes so that even when she is sitting among her siblings, she is clearly isolated. Director of photography Kate McCullough aids in this with wide, unmoving shots that make the most of the space, giving a clear sense of Cait's world. The juxtaposition of Cait's family home and the house Eibhlín and Seán inhabit — one dark and cramped, the other bright and open — tells the viewer which place brings the eponymous heroine more comfort. Editor John Murphy brings it all together in a way that gives the impression of distant memories of a childhood long past, evoking thoughts of another recent critical darling, Aftersun .

Nevertheless, The Quiet Girl is a very different movie, though both films are anchored by a strong performance from a young actor. Clinch makes her onscreen debut here, and it's impressive to see how much she can do with so little. Cait doesn't always speak, leaving it up to the actor to convey her thoughts and feelings through physical gestures. Over the course of The Quiet Girl , she starts to open up. Remarkably, though, the title of the film never becomes inaccurate. Instead, Bairéad sends the message that Cait's newfound comfort doesn't erase her inherent shyness. Eibhlín and Seán accept her for who she is in a way her primary family does not. Bairéad makes the development of Cait's relationships with the two adults feel organic and earned. There's no dramatic coming together, but instead a series of soft, poignant moments. A cookie left as a treat, a makeshift competition involving chores. The little things that make up the domesticity of a quiet life.

The most dramatic part of The Quiet Girl (save for a brief moment that could've gone in a devastating direction) lies in Eibhlín and Seán's past, with the secret the two keep from Cait for some time. Bairéad doesn't telegraph the reveal ahead of time, but when the realization comes, it makes several scenes fall into place like pieces of a puzzle. Eibhlín and Seán become full-fledged characters with vulnerabilities and wants, and it only serves to enhance their bond with Cait. The Quiet Girl steadily builds that relationship up, right until its gut-punch of an ending. There's an ambiguous note to the final scene, one that allows the viewer to dream up what comes next.

The Quiet Girl is far from a showy drama, which could give the impression it is slight and unmemorable. The opposite is true, and in fact, its strength lies in its unfussy approach to telling Cait's story. Like its protagonist, The Quiet Girl is quiet, sensitive, and not to be underestimated in the Oscars race . It reaffirms the idea that there is a place for everyone in this world. It's a comforting notion after the recent years of unease and disconnection.

Next: The Blue Caftan Review: Bakri & Azabal Are Fantastic In Nuanced, Touching Drama

The Quiet Girl releases in theaters Friday, February 24. It is 94 minutes long and rated PG-13 for some strong language and smoking.

The Quiet Girl

Based on the short story Foster by Claire Keegan, A Quiet Girl is an Irish drama film by writer-director Colm Bairéad. Set in 1981 Ireland, nine-year-old Kate is part of a dysfunctional family. When her mother is set to have yet another child, Kate is sent to live with a foster family so that her parents can lighten their burden of dealing with her other siblings. Away from home and feeling out of place, her new family does their best to help her escape her shell and make her feel loved.

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Review: Ireland’s ‘The Quiet Girl’ speaks quiet volumes about kindness

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A neglected child discovers a her-shaped space to fill in “The Quiet Girl,” Colm Bairéad’s hushed, delicately rendered family drama, set in an Irish countryside of tasks and beauty, of the rarely-heard-in-movies Irish language, but also of things unsaid that, in their own way, become a shared language of the lost.

Faithfully transferred from Claire Keegan’s artful 2010 short story “Foster,” “The Quiet Girl” is both the best reason movies should look to more compact narratives for adaptation and, in a few instances, indicative of where cinematic choices can leave unnecessary footprints. But everything in this heartfelt tale is made with the deepest sincerity, and gently packed with soulful portrayals and lovely imagery.

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One of those exquisite images from cinematographer Kate McCullough’s palette is among the movie’s first, the camera locating young Cáit (Catherine Clinch) — whose name we hear called out repeatedly by her impatient mother — lying in a field of tall grass, the blades nearly covering her in their comforting pastoral clasp. When around others, Cáit’s loneliness practically hums. She’s labeled a “weirdo” at school, and in her downtrodden family’s crowded, cold home among her older sisters, their pregnant and distracted mom (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) and a checked-out, disdainful father (Michael Patric), Cáit’s default look is stricken discomfort.

In her cautiously impassive face, we can tell she’s internalized her parents’ decision to foster her out for the summer to the childless Kinsellas, distant relatives with a nice house, a dairy operation and what looks to be a calmer life. Cáit’s dad is so eager to dump her, he even drives off without leaving behind her suitcase. And while curt, stoic Seán Kinsella (Andrew Bennett) might be another taciturn man to navigate, he obviously loves his wife, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley), whose smiling eyes and attentive affection toward her guest — food, friendliness, a bath and fresh clothes (not so girly but at least clean) — is so foreign to Cáit it registers as alien behavior.

“This is a house with no secrets,” Eibhlín says, the only time we detect a hint of gravity, of serious expectation. But to a guileless girl, it’s hardly a restriction when a new world of usefulness, warmth and learning has been opened by Eibhlín’s simply looking after her. And in Seán’s glimmers of consideration as his new charge joins in the farm chores, this tight-lipped guardian not only turns out to be nothing like Cáit’s dad but proves essential to an even greater emotional understanding for Cáit of why the Kinsellas are a household where kindness is, while genuine, also practiced, even cautious. Cáit isn’t the only one, it seems, struggling with expression.

In its depiction of one fatefully blossoming summer, “The Quiet Girl” doesn’t really break any new ground, but its heartbeat is steady and true, and young Clinch meets the demands of her inarticulate character with a beguiling humility, even as DP McCullough often frames her worried watchfulness as nearly incandescent. Bairéad is dedicated to Cáit’s detail-absorbing perspective to a fault, in that sometimes you wish scenes could vary a little more in their rhythms so that when he needs a little transcendence — as when Cáit breaks into a freeing run, or the symbolic moments of reflection and grace at the property’s well — it’s a lift, not a lateral move in a film studded with crystallized moments of aching tenderness.

This is aesthetic nitpicking, however. The key takeaway from “The Quiet Girl” is how rare cinematic depictions of everyday, unadorned sympathy are without the common narrative’s machinery of motive. I’ll admit to thinking, on first viewing, that there was too little to “The Quiet Girl,” that an absence of incident was a sign of willful preciousness. A second, closer look disabused me of that. It would be better to view this fine film as deceptively small, revealing its own distinctively filigreed array of the gentle and good in all that meaningful silence.

'The Quiet Girl'

In Irish and English with English subtitles Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 16, AMC Sunset 5, West Hollywood

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The Quiet Girl

In rural Ireland, a quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer where she blossoms and learns what it is to be loved. In rural Ireland, a quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer where she blossoms and learns what it is to be loved. In rural Ireland, a quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer where she blossoms and learns what it is to be loved.

• Colm Bairéad
• Claire Keegan
• Carrie Crowley
• Andrew Bennett
• Catherine Clinch
• 139 User reviews
• 139 Critic reviews
• 89 Metascore
• 32 wins & 44 nominations total

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• Mac Gearailt
• Ó Cathasaigh
• Woman of the Shop

• Cáit's Half-Twin
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The first-ever film in the Irish language to be shortlisted for an Oscar (Best International Film).
• Goofs The film is set in 1981, but the Jim McCann song "Grace" is on the radio. That song was written in 1985.

Seán Cinnsealach : Many's the person missed the opportunity to say nothing, and lost much because of it.

• Connections Featured in EE BAFTA Film Awards (2023)
• Soundtracks Grace Written by Frank O'Meara and Seán O'Meara Performed by Jim McCann Published by Asdee Music Ltd. Administered by Peermusic (Ireland) Ltd. Licensed by IML Irish Music Licensing Ltd.

User reviews 139

• alex-oceallaigh
• Feb 25, 2022
• How long is The Quiet Girl? Powered by Alexa
• May 13, 2022 (Ireland)
• Screen Ireland site for film
• Irish Gaelic
• The Quiet Girl an Cailín Ciúin
• Moynalvey, County Meath, Ireland
• Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
• Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland
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• Feb 26, 2023

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• Runtime 1 hour 35 minutes

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Aftersun, The Banchees of Inisherin, An Irish Goodbye, and The Quiet Girl are all 2022 films that have received Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards. Considering their success, many people have pontificated about a 'green wave,' and that Irish cinema is having a moment. Of course, there have always been great Irish filmmakers (Jim Sheridan, Martin McDonagh, Lenny Abrahamson, and the great Neil Jordan come to mind), dating back to the 1920s with Rex Ingram and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , but it's true — something felt different about 2022.

Part of that difference stems from the fact that The Quiet Girl (or An Cailín Ciúin ) is the first Oscar-nominated Irish-language film . The Best International Feature Film nominee strays from the English of most Irish productions and feels extremely authentic and of a certain place and time as a result. Colm Bairéad's film is a beautiful and moving picture that lives up to the hushed connotations of its title, but manages to be more emotionally poignant than many louder, more melodramatic films of a similar nature. It's a certified tearjerker and a pretty excellent one at that.

Little Plot but Lots of Love

The film is told from the perspective of nine-year-old Cáit , who lives with her parents and a handful of siblings in a small, crowded home in rural Ireland circa 1981. Her endlessly put-upon and increasingly bitter mother is pregnant, and her father seems to be a somewhat useless alcoholic, but again, they and everything else seem to be viewed from the child's eyes. Worried about food scarcity and Cáit's dreamy, wandering tendencies, the parents send her off to live with distant relatives.

These are the Kinsellas, Eibhlín, and her husband Seán, who have a lovely home and farm many miles away (likely in Leinster, where the surname originated 900 years ago). They immediately welcome young Cáit, though Seán is a much more withdrawn and silent man, similar to the child. She gets put to work, but does not toil; she isn't tasked with scrubbing the floorboard using a toothbrush, Cinderella-style, but with milking the cows and helping bake cookies.

Related: Exclusive: The Quiet Girl Director on His Oscar-Nominated Irish Film

That's essentially the plot of the film. Not much happens in The Quiet Girl 's brisk 94 minutes, and it's kind of glorious. This is a film that relishes the little things, documents the budding relationship and love between a child and her new parental figures, and studies the fears and lack of control which accompany childhood. Unlike other movies which focus on children wanting to escape their nightmare of a home and live a better life elsewhere ( Matilda, Harry Potter, Cinderella ), Bairéad's movie spends the most time on the 'elsewhere' rather than the 'nightmare.' It's honestly sweet to see.

The Quiet Girl Is Emotional and Beautiful

There are stakes though, which come from the characters and feelings rather than the narrative. The film can be emotionally painful despite brimming with compassion and beauty. There are tragedies that certain characters deal with; there's the inevitability that this cannot be an endless summer and that reality will tear the whole thing down when Cáit's parents take her back; there's anxiety, uncertainty, and melancholy.

But The Quiet Girl is never emotionally manipulative about these things, and never cheats. Even its score (by Stephen Rennicks) doesn't yank at the heartstrings but instead sounds like the ambient backdrop which would accompany a memory. It's very pretty, but also rarely invasive, which is yet another refreshing quality for a film about childhood.

Related: Best Irish Movies of the 2010s, Ranked

Bairéad's approach here aligns with his career as a documentary filmmaker, which involves a lot of patient observance and immersion into a world. The Quiet Girl is just like that, quietly watching the summer unfold and meditating upon its little tragedies and beauties, and beautiful it is. The film often feels like a Terrence Malick movie for kids and families, awash in gorgeous cinematography of nature and close-ups of people caught up in internal conflicts. Kate McCullough had done cinematography with Bairéad on the documentary films, and her work here captures that same observational sense of presence.

Crowley and Bennett Give Perfect Performances

Catherine Clinch is great as Cáit, though she is more of the audience's entry point into the world of the film. True to its title, she doesn't speak too much, but the whole film is filtered through her perception. It's a subtle role that pairs beautifully with the two immensely moving and pitch-perfect performances here — Carrie Crowley as Eibhlín and Andrew Bennett as Seán.

Crowley is touching as a deeply maternal figure who understands the young girl's trepidation and fears at moving into this new home, and who does whatever she can to make sure that Cáit feels safe and loved. She's brilliant with the little moments, such as the scene where she enters the bedroom and finds that Cáit had wet the bed in the night; she comforts Cáit, speculating that 'the mattress was weeping.'

Bennett is ultimately heartbreaking and unforgettable as a very sturdy older man who has a ton of love in his heart, but has perhaps been too hurt and is too much of a traditional 'man' to easily tap into those emotions. The film's best relationship may be between him and Cáit, two very quiet people who begin to open up in little, genuine, beautiful ways. It's a towering performance that's somehow also very small, and altogether masterful.

While it may be too inconsequential and 'boring' for many mainstream viewers, The Quiet Girl is an excellent film for anyone looking for an immersive, beautiful experience, and anyone who wants to open up their heart, even if that means letting it break just a bit. The Quiet Girl is a production of Inscéal, Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, TG4, and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, and will be in theaters on February 24.

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‘The Quiet Girl’ Movie Review: A Superlative Irish Coming-of-Age Drama That Will Move You to Tears

The Quiet Girl is the type of coming-of-age drama that slyly sneaks up on you and fills your heart with a rush of emotion. Writer/director Colm Bairéad interweaves a marvelously beautiful story with Catherine Clinch’s incredibly delicate performance to craft a piece of filmmaking that is both poignant and thought-provoking. Audiences would be best served to bring a box of tissues for the guaranteed waterworks, but those tears are earned through a story bursting with life.

‘The Quiet Girl’ is a subtle tale set in 1981 rural Ireland

The Quiet Girl is set in 1981 rural Ireland. Cáit (Clinch) is a withdrawn, neglected girl living in a full household where another child is on the way. However, her whole world is turned upside down when her dysfunctional family makes the decision to leave her with foster parents for the summer. She initially locks her feelings deeper away inside, but she soon begins to discover hope in this new home.

An older couple named Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and Seán Cinnsealach (Andrew Bennett) open their home to Cáit. She blossoms in their care, although she realizes that it’s only temporary. Eibhlín explains that they live in a farmhouse without secrets, but they’re hiding one from the young girl that runs deep.

Writer/director Colm Bairéad crafts a beautiful story about the meanings of home and family

The Quiet Girl finds Cáit living a fairly lonely existence as the outcast in every social environment possible. Her parents don’t bother to connect with her, and other children at school consider her to be the “weird” girl. Cáit’s relationship with her siblings doesn’t fare much better, as they regularly push her to the margins of the family. However, one summer away is about to change everything.

Bairéad’s screenplay depicts the many forms and shapes that compose a family. Cáit’s biological one is cold and distant, which creates a striking juxtaposition to the warmth and closeness found in her foster home. This is critical in the film’s examination of what the concept of home truly means, extending far beyond its physical manifestation of it. The Quiet Girl is all about the unspoken for both the characters and the audience, establishing a rich world that deeply integrates its audience.

Cáit isn’t the only one who requires some time to adjust to the new living situation. Eibhlín and Seán both handle her arrival in differing ways. Eibhlín welcomes her in with open arms, feeling an immense amount of sympathy for the young girl and her situation. However, Seán displays a coldness toward her, although it’s a different distance than what she experienced with her biological father. Cáit and her new foster parents have things to learn from one another as they rediscover what it means to love again.

‘The Quiet Girl’ is one of the very best films of the year

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Bairéad’s feature debut marks him as a talent to watch as both a screenwriter and a director. it’s sentimental storytelling, but never moves taps exploits trauma. Bairéad holds a high amount of respect for Cáit and her temporary foster parents, as well as the audiences having the opportunity to experience their story. Additionally, Kate McCullough’s lush cinematography pulls out the bright greens in the environment and the increasingly vivid colors in Cáit’s clothing right to the forefront. She makes the world around the lead appear so big and daunting, yet so beautiful with hints of nostalgia.

Bairéad asks for a little bit of patience in his storytelling, just as this young girl takes time to open up to others. However, it’s tremendously rewarding for those who stick with it and give it the opportunity to latch onto them. Clinch further enhances the film’s charm with a quiet, but superb and nuanced performance that says a lot with few words. She communicates whole monologues with a mere glance.

The Quiet Girl is one of the very best films of the year, containing the warmest and most deeply-affecting hugging scene in recent memory. Ireland named the film their submission to the 2023 Oscars as their International Feature Entry for good reason. It exudes such empathy that you just can’t help but fall for its charm. It’s a must-see piece of filmmaking that hugs you in an embrace like no other.

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In ‘The Quiet Girl,’ an Irish Loneliness Rarely Seen Onscreen

The first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Oscar, directed by Colm Bairéad, tells a gentle story of cultural reticence.

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By Roisin Lanigan

Reporting from London

This article contains spoilers for the film “The Quiet Girl.”

For the first 55 minutes of “The Quiet Girl,” the film’s audience does not know why the titular child has been sent to live with strangers in the Irish countryside. Cáit (Catherine Clinch), 9, does not know either. Her parents do not talk to her, and they barely speak to each other.

Cáit eventually learns the truth from a nosy neighbor: While her parents prepare for the birth of yet another baby, she has been shuttled from her chaotic family home to spend the summer with some middle-aged relatives, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and Seán (Andrew Bennett), who have their own silent sorrow.

This uneasy, unanswered isolation is at the heart of “The Quiet Girl,” which arrives in U.S. theaters on Friday, and is the first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Oscar. A “hushed work about kith and kindness,” as Lisa Kennedy wrote in her review for The New York Times, the film tells a quintessentially Irish story, yet one that is rarely seen by international audiences on the big screen.

Irish cinema often features a cast of gregarious men and pious, conservative women, like in Ken Loach’s “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”; “Brooklyn,” starring Saoirse Ronan; and Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-nominated “Belfast.”

“Irish people are always known for the gift of the gab,” said Cleona Ní Chrualaoí, the producer of “The Quiet Girl.” “It becomes almost a caricature.” But in Chrualaoí’s film, Cáit and her new guardians cautiously try to connect through their loneliness and pain.

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The quiet girl review: colm bairéad’s gently perceptive portrait of the scars of living.

Bairéad’s first fiction feature is a work of rapturous emotional depth.

At the start of writer-director Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl , Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is seen hiding in a field as her three sisters and pregnant mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) call out her name. She skulks back home to her room, where we grasp the reason why she fled to that spot in the field: The nine-year-old has wet her bed, and presumably not for the first time. Not long after, Cáit leaves school in the middle of the day because of an incident during lunch. The young girl’s tendency to run from her problems is such a constant that her father (Michael Patric), otherwise remote and inattentive, wryly calls her “the wanderer.”

Adapted from Claire Keegan’s novella Foster and set in 1980s Ireland, The Quiet Girl features primarily Irish-language dialogue, with a few portions in English. Throughout, the film’s approach to storytelling reflects Cáit’s avoidant tendencies, which isn’t to say that Bairéad keeps us at an emotional remove from the events of the story. If the film is a work of rapturous emotional depth, it’s because of its reserved qualities rather than in spite of them.

For one, we’re not directly told why Cáit’s parents send her and her alone to stay with a childless older couple, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and Seán Kinsella (Andrew Bennett), for the summer. From her actions and the way that others behave toward her, though, we can see how she’s practiced in being the odd one out, so if one of the kids must go away for a while, she’s the natural choice. Her exact relation to Eibhlín and Seán also goes unsaid for some time; they’re welcoming and kind but, as Eibhlín observes, essentially strangers to Cáit. One late scene even abruptly cuts away when a guest asks the Kinsellas who Cáit is and why she’s staying with them.

The Quiet Girl is withholding without ever suggesting that it’s going to be defined entirely by narrative reveals or shocking twists. In keying itself to Cáit’s reserved, observational nature, Bairéad ably and realistically captures the way in which people don’t always say what they mean or explain things neatly and sequentially. Though the film spends little time depicting Cáit’s initial home life, the stressful squeeze of poverty is apparent everywhere, from the harried attitudes of her family to the cluttered set design, which the camerawork further emphasizes with its boxy aspect ratio and often capturing characters between cramped walls.

But at the Kinsella home, The Quiet Girl ’s aesthetic is fascinatingly reoriented. The shot compositions become more open and airy, as if the warmth that Cáit feels inside this tidy home on a dairy farm were altering the fiber of the film itself. Where previously the camera would need to cut away from Cáit to observe any of the surrounding action, everything that happens with the Kinsellas unfolds with her in the same frame. It’s as though she learns how to exist in a way that doesn’t leave her feeling uncomfortable for taking up space.

Yet even here inside this tidy home on a dairy farm, unspoken tensions persist, as when Eibhlín, at first relaxed while preparing food in the kitchen with Cáit, stiffens when Seán enters the room. Their accommodation of her, it seems, is built on a pain of its own.

The Kinsellas also offer a simple yet striking contrast when they balk at Cáit’s father’s suggestion of putting the girl to work in exchange for her stay at the home, even though that’s more or less what Eibhlín and Seán do by taking her through their chores on the farm. But it’s clear that, to the couple, the companionship is the point rather than the idea of a helping hand; they’re attentive and nurturing in a way that the girl has never experienced before.

Apart from a few muttered asides and unnecessary flashbacks, The Quiet Girl operates in a reserved mode throughout its running time. This isn’t a film that makes room for stirring speeches or easy shorthand. Consistently observational and perceptive about how scars are left behind, The Quiet Girl earns its most emotionally powerful scenes because of the way that it so gracefully convinces us that it wasn’t even building toward them in the first place.

Steven Scaife

Steven Nguyen Scaife is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Buzzfeed News , Fanbyte , Polygon , The Awl , Rock Paper Shotgun , EGM , and others. He is reluctantly based in the Midwest.

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'The Quiet Girl' Ending Explained: Cáit Finally Finds a Family

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The Big Picture

• The Quiet Girl's ambiguous ending reveals a deep bond formed after confronting hidden traumas and neglected love.
• The film subtly hints at abuse and neglect, culminating in a heartwarming connection between Cáit and Seán.
• Cáit finds the father figure she deserves in Seán, healing both their past traumas and filling a void with love.

What does that beautiful, ambiguous ending of The Quiet Girl mean? This year, The Quiet Girl ( An Cailín Ciúin in Irish) received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best International Feature, and with it, Colm Bairéad’ s excellent feature debut i s sure to rack up a fair share of attention. It's also gone on to become the highest-grossing Irish language film of all time . The Quiet Girl is a wonderful film filled with quiet, beautiful moments, elevated by lush cinematography and succinct performances. Simply, it would make a neat little double feature with Charlotte Wells ’s magnificent Aftersun .

The story is simple: A shy and soft-spoken girl named Cáit ( Catherine Clinch ) is sent by her mother ( Kate Nic Chonaonaigh ) and father ( Michael Patric ) to live with, Seán ( Andrew Bennett ) and Eibhlín ( Carrie Crowley ), a pair of distant relatives. Out in the countryside, Cáit spends the summer with her relatives on an idyllic Irish farm, and along the way, she comes to terms with an unexpected reality. Through a simple, hushed narrative, The Quiet Girl accomplishes the impressive feat of changing its protagonist’s life in 90 short minutes . It ends with some ambiguity, but the ultimate meaning of its conclusion is spelled out throughout the movie.

The Quiet Girl

In rural Ireland, a quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer where she blossoms and learns what it is to be loved.

What Happens at the End of ‘The Quiet Girl’?

Throughout the summer spent with Seán and Eibhlín, Cáit comes out of her shell, becoming more comfortable with herself and forming an intimate bond with her temporary guardians. Seán, while at first withdrawn and emotionally distant , soon treats Cáit like the daughter he never had. Near the end of the film, it’s revealed that Seán’s initial coldness towards Cáit is rooted in the trauma of losing his son , who drowned in the farm’s slurry pit. While spending time with Cáit, he learns to let his guard down and confront his grief in order to give Cáit the love and attention she needs.

Cáit is due home as the summer holidays have come to an end . But after falling into a well trying to fetch fresh water, Cáit catches a cold and is bedridden for a few days. Soon after, while still recovering, the Kinsellas bring her home, as her mother has given birth. There’s sadness all around, with neither Cáit nor her temporary guardians wanting their time together to end. Nonetheless, they return Cáit to her house, where she’s welcomed with general indifference by her parents and siblings .

Irish Cinema Is Having a Moment

It's a proud day for the Irish!

Her father , on the other hand, notices the remnants of the cold and criticizes and berates her for sneezing and sniffles. Seán is visibly agitated by the subtle cruelty of Cáit’s father , and the couple cut their visit short. They depart, heartbroken to leave Cáit behind at a home where she’s, at best, outright neglected. After a moment’s hesitation, recognizing the suffocating reality of her home, she sprints after Seán and Eibhlín, catching them just as they’re opening the gate at the edge of the property. This recalls a pivotal moment earlier in the film where Seán challenges Cáit to sprint to the mailbox , which she does with blissful peace.

Cáit and Seán lovingly embrace, whether it's bidding farewell or reuniting. Just up the way, Cáit’s father approaches steadily, angrily, in pursuit of his daughter. Cáit softly mutters “daddy,” as a sort of warning to Seán about her approaching father. A moment passes, she melts into Seán’s embrace, and repeats "daddy" much more fondly this time around as the film cuts to black.

‘The Quiet Girl’ Alludes to a History of Abuse

In order to properly and fully unpack the film’s restrained ending, it’s important to first look at a crucial plot point that is only alluded to, rather than outright stated. Apart from the unnatural discomfort that Cáit shows around her father , there are a few other signs that hint at the sinister truth that Cáit has been abused, perhaps even sexually, by her father. Repeated instances of bedwetting also hint at a hidden trauma . When Eibhlín asks Cáit to come with her to the well, the girl becomes sheepish. “Is it a secret? Am I not supposed to tell?” she asks timidly. Eibhlín understands what she’s saying, but she responds with remarkable calm, “there are no secrets in this house. If there are secrets in a house, there is shame in that house”.

The bedwetting and fear of late-night walks and the secrets they hold leave some ambiguity towards the abuse itself. What specifically happened at Cáit’s home is left unspoken, and it’s ultimately up to the viewer to decide what such a secret might hold at Cáit’s house. Even with such specificities undeclared, however, there’s an undeniable shame hidden, and all that is due to Cáit’s cruel and drunken father.

Seán Is the Father Cáit Never Had

Because of her father’s cruelty and abuse, Cáit has rejected him as a proper father figure. Through the abuse, as well as her mother’s general neglect, Cáit had become timid and reserved . She’d been cheated out of the unconditional love that a parent owes their child. Ironically, it’s only through Eibhlín and Seán (her mother's cousin and Eibhlín's husband) that she’s able to be treated rightfully as a daughter. They may not be her birth parents, but by all accounts, t hey’re the parents that Cáit deserves...and needs.

You can see it with the decadent little cookie (the Kimberley biscuit as it's known in Ireland) Seán discreetly passes her way one summer afternoon (it’s never just a cookie ), through the time spent sweeping the barn together and the moments of genuine kindness. So when she utters that second “daddy," it’s no longer directed at her father , it’s directed at Seán , who in a few short months showed her the kind of love she’d been missing all her life. With him, and with Eibhlín, she’s treated like their own beloved child , like somebody worth loving. And she loves them, too.

Cáit Helps the Kinsellas Confront Their Grief

With Seán accepting Cáit as a daughter figure, he also completes a crucial transformation. The emotional scars left by his son’s tragic death , while never able to vanish, are treated through Cáit’s presence. If his initial rejection of her came from a place of sensitivity, his push for her to buy her own clothes (rather than grotesquely wearing the dust-ridden outfits of his departed son) is an act of acceptance. Cáit isn’t a replacement for Seán’s son , and she could never be. She’s something different, someone who is equally worthy of love.

All this time, Seán had his guard up, protecting himself from further heartbreak. Through his bond with Cáit, he’s able to love again, recover, and move forward with his life. These two people, a newfound pair of father and daughter, discovered in each other a missing piece in their lives. In the warm embrace they share, if only then, each is safe from the dangers of the world.

The Quiet Girl is currently streaming on Hulu in the U.S.

Watch on Hulu

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The quiet girl.

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• Parents Say 2 Reviews
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Common Sense Media Review

Beautiful Irish drama has language, death, smoking.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Quiet Girl is a captivating coming-of-age drama set in 1980s Ireland with occasional strong language and smoking. Adapted from a novella by Claire Keegan, the story focuses on a 9-year-old girl -- Cáit (Catherine Clinch) -- who's sent away from her family to live with distant…

Why Age 12+?

Infrequent language includes "f---ing," "f--k," "bastard," "ass," "idiot," "weir

Characters drink alcohol but are not seen drunk. Some smoking.

Death of a child mentioned. Death of an adult and a dead body shown in a coffin

Choc ice brand mentioned. Characters go to shops to buy clothes and there is an

Any Positive Content?

Love is powerful. Small gestures of kindness, empathy, and compassion can have a

Cáit is quiet and neglected, interacting little with the chaos around her. This

The film is set in Ireland with Irish dialogue used for the majority of the film

Infrequent language includes "f---ing," "f--k," "bastard," "ass," "idiot," "weirdo," and "dope."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Death of a child mentioned. Death of an adult and a dead body shown in a coffin at a wake. Passing mention of intention to shoot a dog.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Choc ice brand mentioned. Characters go to shops to buy clothes and there is an advert for stationery on the radio.

Positive Messages

Love is powerful. Small gestures of kindness, empathy, and compassion can have a big impact. Secrets sometimes harbor shame.

Positive Role Models

Cáit is quiet and neglected, interacting little with the chaos around her. This is until her environment changes and she is encouraged by those around her to feel safe in coming out of her shell, showing herself to be thoughtful and helpful toward others. Eibhlín is tender and patient, showing kindness, empathy, and compassion. Seán is gruff and distant when he first meets Cáit, but gradually shows great warmth and support toward her, while also standing up for her. They are both good neighbors to those around them, helping out in others' times of need. Cáit's mother is busy, overworked at home, and distant toward her daughter. She shows little care or attention to her. Neither does her father, who has an affair, and drinks and gambles away the family money.

Diverse Representations

The film is set in Ireland with Irish dialogue used for the majority of the film. The main character is a young girl, and is seen to be quiet and neglected, yet maintains an inner strength. Characters are majority White and adhere quite strongly to traditional male and female stereotypes, such as the women cooking, cleaning, and looking after children, and the men doing more manual labor or, less positively, having affairs, gambling, and drinking.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that The Quiet Girl is a captivating coming-of-age drama set in 1980s Ireland with occasional strong language and smoking. Adapted from a novella by Claire Keegan, the story focuses on a 9-year-old girl -- Cáit (Catherine Clinch) -- who's sent away from her family to live with distant relatives. Much of the dialogue is in Irish (with English subtitles for U.S. release), and the movie received an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film. Infrequent strong language includes "f--k" and "bastard." There's drinking and smoking, as well as references to gambling and characters seen betting on a card game. A child's death is mentioned, and an adult's dead body is shown in a coffin at a wake. The film has a slow, quiet pace that unfolds gradually, exploring the impact of empathy, compassion, and love. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (2)

Based on 2 parent reviews

A Gem from the Emerald Isle

What's the story.

In THE QUIET GIRL, Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with distant relatives for the summer. Used to shrinking into the background, she comes out of her shell in the new environment. But in a place of unfamiliar love, she also discovers a painful secret.

Is It Any Good?

This impactful debut from writer-director Colm Bairéad quickly became the top-grossing Irish-language film of all time in its home country. The Quiet Girl is also the first Irish-language production to be nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film. The film is a slow, stealthy affair that is often as subdued as its heroine, giving a child's-eye-view of the world from a place of detached curiosity, the camera noticing every detail that captures Cáit's attention. Her coming of age is a gradual understanding and experience of being loved, cared for, and seen. There are subtle moments of tenderness expressed in the smallest of gestures that will have the biggest of impacts on even the coldest of hearts. The movie is beautifully produced, with dreamlike shots and a wistful score which, along with the phenomenal performances -- particularly from newcomer Clinch -- make this an emotional tour de force to be reckoned with.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the theme of love in The Quiet Girl. Why is it important to experience love and care from those around you? In what different ways do characters show their love in the film?

The film is in Irish. Can you think of any other movies you've seen in that language? What impact did it have to watch a movie in its native tongue? Did it change the experience?

Eibhlín and Seán show empathy and compassion toward Cáit. Why are these important character strengths ? What impact do you see them have on-screen?

Talk about the use of strong language in the movie. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

How was smoking depicted in the film? Do you think attitudes to smoking have changed since when the movie was set? Why, or why why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 16, 2022
• Cast : Carrie Crowley , Andrew Bennett , Catherine Clinch
• Director : Colm Bairéad
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Super LTD
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Book Characters
• Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy
• Run time : 95 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : some strong language and smoking.
• Last updated : May 17, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Quiet Girl’ on Hulu, a Softly Devastating, Must-See Irish Drama

Where to stream:, leave no trace (2018).

• international film

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The Quiet Girl ( now on Hulu ) was the first-ever Irish film nominated for the Best International Feature Film Oscar; it and another truly exceptional film, Jerzy Skolimowski’s donkey parable EO , both lost the award to All Quiet on the Western Front , which is a perfectly fine movie until you compare it to these two competitors. Shot primarily in Gaelic, The Quiet Girl is the debut feature from writer-director Colm Bairead, who adapted Claire Keegan’s short story Foster , about a troubled girl whose family sends her to live on a cousin’s farm for a summer. It’s one of those movies that say more when nothing is being said, and when something’s being said, it cuts right to the quick – and sometimes breaks your damn heart. 

THE QUIET GIRL : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Cait (Catherine Clinch) lies in the tall grass, hiding, and you get the sense she prefers not to be seen. At home, she looks upon the stain on her mattress with shame, as if she’s been scolded and teased countless times for it. She’s among a bevy of children living in a dimly lit, cramped, dirty home. She has older sisters and a young sibling who wails in a high chair to no response, a scene that doesn’t heed well for a baby yet to be born. Their mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) seems, in a word, inattentive. Cait sits silent in a corner of the pub while her father (Michael Patric) drinks; we’ll later learn he gambles, losing with apparent regularity. School – well, it’s torture. It’s where she reads much more slowly than her classmates, and where she sits alone with little or no lunch, and when she steals a cup of milk from an unaccompanied thermos, other children bump her desk so it spills in her lap. At recess, when the bell rings and the kids scamper back to class, she bolts across the field and over the fence. 

One night Cait overhears her parents talking about her mother’s “people,” and soon thereafter her father puts her in the car and drives three hours to unceremoniously drop her off at a dairy farm owned and run by Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley), a cousin of Cait’s mother, and Sean (Andrew Bennett). They’re a rapidly graying couple whose spacious home is filled with natural light and gentle color, but otherwise feels a bit empty. Cait’s father warns Eibhlin and Sean that she’ll eat them out of house and home, and he tells Cait, “Try not to fall into the fire, you.” He leaves, and the lack of hug or kind word as goodbye? It’s telling, a portrait painted of near-tragic neglect.

Eibhlin’s soft features and warm gaze look Cait up and down, noting her grubby dress and skin without judgment, but some pity. She takes Cait upstairs and runs a hot bath and gently, so gently washes the girl. Cait has nothing else to wear so Eibhlin finds some boy’s clothes in a closet and cuffs the sleeves and pants. She takes the girl down to the well to drink some cool, pure water. She counts the strokes as she brushes Cait’s hair. Cait doesn’t say much, and there’s no pressure on her to talk. “There are no secrets in this house,” Eibhlin says with warmth, openness, a loving spirit.

Sean is relatively chilly in his demeanor. We worry for a moment or two; maybe he’s not keen on taking in a child they barely know (and maybe there’s a reason for that). One morning, Eibhlin leaves to help a friend’s ailing father. Cait sits silent at the breakfast table. Sean stands in the kitchen in his work coveralls eating a snack and as he walks out of the room he wordlessly leaves something on the table for Cait. It’s a cookie. Soon Cait will follow him across the grounds to the barns and pick up a broom to help. He feeds a calf by bottle and she peppers him with the questions of a child robust with curiosity, until he hands her the bottle to finish the job. They settle into routines, with Cait assisting Eibhlin with cooking and cleaning, and Cait helping Sean with the cattle and milking machines. One morning Sean tells Cait that he bets she can run fast on those long legs. He’ll time her out to the mailbox and back. She does it again, and again, and gets faster and faster every time. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Quiet Girl is, roughly, a cross between life in rural Ireland a la The Banshees of Inisherin and Leave No Trace , with Clinch’s performance recalling Thomasin McKenzie’s moving and thoughtful portrayal of a girl hemmed in by her paternal situation.

Performance Worth Watching: Crowley, refined and astute, and Bennett, wounded and tender, communicate so much about their characters while saying so little. And Clinch? She’s a wonder, her character carrying a psychological burden as all children do – without knowing quite what it is and therefore not capable of understanding it, but nevertheless feeling its weight so intently. 

Memorable Dialogue: Sean firmly defends Cait’s reticence to speak much: “She says as much as she needs to say.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Quiet Girl is a heartbreaker, from its opening shot illustrating Cait’s emotional isolation, to its final, faint, whispered moment. Bairead’s direction is exquisite, a finely tuned synthesis of clear-eyed realism and visual poetry that foregoes melodrama for a depiction of Cait and Sean and Eibhlin’s lives, leavened as they are by simple joys and crippling tragedies. Bairead emphasizes the former once Cait finds a safe place to simply be ; we don’t see the latter, but there’s an air to the film implicating dangers past, present and future. Childhood innocence is ever so fragile, and Bairead handles it ever so delicately, like a treasured glass ornament.

Bairead’s economical storytelling strips away all pretense and clings tightly to Cait’s point of view. Sometimes, he pauses to focus on a minute detail of a scene – water trickling through a drain, the locomotives on wallpaper in a child’s bedroom – just long enough so we notice it, and can very briefly ponder his intent, before he cuts away. Other filmmakers might linger on such moments of uncomplicated beauty, the textures in life’s tapestry, but every shot comprising the artfully honed rhythm of Bairead’s narrative feels deliberately tailored to allow complex ideas to murmur quietly beneath what appears to be a simple observation of setting. There are no heavy hands here, from the thoughtful and poignant work of the cast to the dramatic beats of the story; it stirs up base questions about nature and nurture as it shows us the potency of both love and indifference, and asks pointedly where Cait – and possibly any of us – truly belongs. And then it leaves us staring at our bleeding hearts, torn out and placed in our open hands.    

Our Call: The Quiet Girl deserved that Oscar. Don’t let it slip by. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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The Quiet Girl Review

13 May 2022

The Quiet Girl

The Quiet Girl is, not unexpectedly, a quiet film. With dialogue almost entirely in Irish, a language still woefully underrepresented on screen, the film follows Cáit, played by newcomer Catherine Clinch with a tiny whisper of a voice and hugely impressive understatement. She’s a shy, sad schoolgirl in an unhappy family, sent away to spend the summer with her mother’s cousin; there, she’s shown a simple, uncomplicated tenderness, forging a family of the kind she’s clearly never experienced before. It’s a simple but artfully effective debut feature from Irish filmmaker Colm Bairéad, with a remarkable, heartbreaking debut performance from Clinch, whose face betrays anxieties she doesn’t yet fully understand.

The film is low on incident, but generous to its characters and invigoratingly sweet.

The dialogue, when it comes, is gentle and lyrical. Bairéad’s screenplay (adapting a novella by Irish writer Claire Keegan) finds poetry in the shapes and contours of his native tongue, and even if you’re not an Irish speaker, you’ll find beauty in the language. It’s an obvious comfort to Cáit, too; tellingly, the few English speakers in the film are characters she fears or struggles to trust, such as her belligerent, emotionally inert father (Michael Patric), who only has time for talk of weather or gambling.

The title nods to the quietness of its title character, but in truth, this is a film full of people unable to express themselves, inner turmoil in different forms. Cáit’s parents are sad and unfulfilled; Cáit herself struggles to make friends; and her foster parents, though much more open and loving, have a grief-filled history they are not sharing. It takes acts of mutual care and affection for any lines of communication to open.

With artfully sedate camerawork — the perspective never leaves Cáit’s vantage point — and naturalistic cinematography from director of photography Kate McCullough, Bairéad’s debut film finds a comfort in stillness. A gorgeous minimalist score from Stephen Rennicks ( Normal People ) augments the effect. The film is low on incident, and could easily threaten to be slight, but it’s generous to its characters and invigoratingly sweet, ultimately singing to the virtues of peacefulness. Sometimes, the film ponders, it’s better not to say anything at all. “She says as much as she needs to say,” Cáit’s adoptive father says of her. “May there be many like her.”

• Entertainment
• <i>Good One</i> Takes to the Woods for a Gorgeous and Subtle Coming-of-Age Story

Good One Takes to the Woods for a Gorgeous and Subtle Coming-of-Age Story

T here are days when the maxim “No good deed goes unpunished” feels unbearably weighty, when having done the right thing, the good thing, becomes a burden you wish you could shrug off. Writer-director India Donaldson’s gorgeous and subtle debut Good One is about one of those days, specifically the kind of moment that makes you wish you could turn back the clock, just by a minute, and rearrange the whole scene. It’s about the way humans, blinded by their own neediness, can take advantage of others’ kindness and empathy without even meaning to. And it’s also about being a kid, a teenager who may still be figuring out the world but who has common sense and compassion on her side. The movie doesn’t clamp down on any of these ideas; instead, they’re like shimmery minnows slipping and darting just beneath the water’s surface. This is a small, delicate film, but its ripples linger.

Seventeen-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) is headed out for a weekend camping trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros), who’s been divorced from Sam’s mother for a while. Chris’ oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy), a boisterous, underemployed actor who's still reeling from a recent divorce, is going with them—his teenage son was supposed to come along, but bailed at the last minute. Lily seems mildly annoyed to be stuck with these two old men for the weekend; before she’s too far into the wilderness, while she can still get a signal, she checks her phone and gets an update on a party she’s missing. But she likes Matt, as annoying as he can be, and she’s been on so many hiking trips with her dad that they’ve become a worn-in tradition. She also seems to know, without articulating it for herself, that the era of these father-daughter trips is close to its end. She’s off to college soon, and we know—even if she doesn’t—how much her life is likely to change.

Chris is an experienced hiker and an affable know-it-all. Sam doesn’t even have to roll her eyes at him; her affectionate exasperation is implied. Matt is the sort of guy who fills his pack with junk food and enough cups and dishes to accommodate 20 campers. He’s brought extra jeans because he can’t imagine wearing the same pair for three days. And, to Chris and Sam’s dismay, he’s forgotten his sleeping bag. But they shouldn’t worry about him getting cold at night—he’s brought a beanie! Matt is a bit of a mess, but at least he's an endearing one. Chris needles him relentlessly, but over the decades their idiosyncrasies have become a kind of Superglue; they’re stuck to, and with, each other forever.

Sam intuitively gets that, and though she teases her father, a bit heartlessly, about being an old man who’s just fathered a child with his new partner, she’s also attuned to what makes these two men feel so sad and lost. She takes good care of them on the trail, filtering their drinking water for them and rustling up a ramen-noodle meal that they devour with gusto. (“You guys are like little monsters,” she says as they slurp away.) She listens sympathetically as, drunk in front of the campfire, Matt jabbers on about the bummer his life has become. She’s picking up on the very vibrations of his sadness. You can see it in the pitch of her eyebrows—they’re like antenna poised to respond to the emotions of those around her, even those of exasperating old dudes.

Read more: The 100 Best Movies of the Past 10 Decades

And then everything shifts, in a flash of time that can’t be reeled back. Shot by Wilson Cameron, Good One carries us along on waves of visual tranquility. We see trees ruffled by the wind, and a traffic-cone-orange newt skittering along a rock's surface. Sam spots a slug sliming its way along a bed of moist leaves and points it out to her father—even these yucky creatures can look like miniature miracles. But the movie’s turning point makes all of those wonders feel sad in retrospect. Nature may not let us down, but boy, people sure can.

You can’t make a movie as understated as this one without good actors, and Donaldson has rounded up three of them. McCarthy’s Matt is such a clueless motormouth you sometimes want to smack him. But when he explains how a new moon can reflect sunlight back at the earth, as if returning a blessing, a phenomenon known as earthshine, you can hardly hate him. McCarthy shows us the tenderness behind Matt’s actorly bluster. Le Gros, always a terrific actor, plays Chris as one of those semi-self-absorbed dads who knows his daughter is so well-adjusted he doesn’t have to worry about her, not realizing that good parenting is less about worrying than about truly seeing and hearing the young human being standing before you.

But Collias is the brightest presence in this triangular constellation. She says a lot, while doing very little. At one point a trio of good-natured twenty-something slackers set up camp about 10 yards away from her little crew. Sam is annoyed at first, but then we see how her face opens in the presence of their affable chatter. They’re goofy as hell, but they’ve got youth on their side, while Sam is stuck spending a whole weekend with a couple of complaining, nearing-60 dudes. She’s at the beginning of everything—more than once, we see her duck behind a tree to change out her tampon, evidence of the reality that she’s a young, vital person fully capable of giving life. Meanwhile, the two clueless old-timers in her orbit natter on about their man problems. Collias captures something gossamer here, a quiet shift into adult womanhood that happens, literally, overnight. She’s the new moon, ready to emerge. But unlike the moon, she makes her own light.

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