Hollywood Reviews and Movie Trivia

"The Quiet", written by Micah Schraft & Abdi Nazemian and directed by Jamie Babbit, has all the ingredients to tell a number of compelling stories but looses fluidity in tying the stories together and only earns a C-...

The age-old production question comes to mind. It's said that a good film starts with the words on the page. The question becomes, if the words on the page have the basics of a good story, is it the director's skill that turns it into a viable presentation? In "The Quiet", the lines are so trite at times that a serious moment that should have had dramatic impact, comes across with humorous edge to it. Working in production and being on a lot of sets the past 22 years, I've observed that quite often a veteran cast will interpret a scene and be allowed to play the scene with "natural dialogue" and the scene works.

The current "Little Miss Sunshine" is an example of a family with multiple issues, which are woven nicely, with believable edges, into a stimulating film. The family in "The Quiet" has multiple issues as well. The casts of veteran actors give some very interesting profiles of the family members. The veteran cast includes Elisha Cuthbet (Kim Bauer, Jack Bauer's [Keifer Sutherland] daughter in the hit TV series "24"), Camilla Belle (this years remake of the classic "When a Stranger Calls"), Edie Falco (HBO's "Sopranos"), Martin Donavan (this years "The Sentinel"), and Shawn Ashmore ("Iceman" in this years hit "X-Men: The Last Stand").

The story centers on Nina Deer (Cuthbert) and her family. Nina is a cheerleader at high school and on the surface seems to have the perfect upscale suburban life. Her parents Paul (Donavan) and Olivia (Falco) have serious issues. Olivia is heavily dependent on prescription drugs, and is half-in / half-out of the real world. Paul seems simply dissatisfied with his life and where it's taken him. When Paul and Olivia's goddaughter Dot (Belle), whose deaf and doesn't speak, losses her parents, Paul and Olivia take her in. The first family dinner scene reveals just how seriously strained the family relationship is. And, Dot, unwillingly much to her dismay, is thrust into their fractured lives. Because Dot's deaf and doesn't speak, she becomes the sounding board and sometimes the brunt of the aggressions of the family.

At school, the same fate befalls Dot. Even the school basketball star Connor (Ashmore) develops an odd fascination for Dot after being paired with her as a lab partner and starts sharing some of his biggest secrets with Dot. And Dot is harboring perhaps the biggest secret of her own.

Although the actors seem to be doing the best they can with the disjointed and sometimes erratic sequences, the technical look of "The Quiet" is very good. Its all shot in HD (High Definition digital as opposed to film). Previously director Michael Mann had the most extensive use of HD for "Collateral" (Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx) which took place all in one night and allowed him to use a lot of natural light, as well as the night scenes in "Miami Vice". "The Quiet" did have enough basic substance to make you want to see how it turns out in the end. The last 30 munutes of "The Quiet" made sitting through the first 60 minuets worth the time. It was just a rough ride trying to get there...

Grade: C-