'The Quiet Girl' is a deceptively simple story about unexpected kindness

Roger Ebert liked to say that it was never the sad moments in movies that moved him the most, but rather when characters showed each other unexpected kindnesses. I’m wired much the same way. Nothing gets these creaky old tear ducts flowing faster than acts of compassion, which could explain why “The Quiet Girl” reduced this critic to a whimpering puddle.

It’s through those sad eyes that we see the movie, glimpsed in half-understood fragments of an adult world Cáit can’t quite comprehend yet. Bairéad keeps the camera low to the ground or banished to the backseat of the car, focusing on the kind of stray, ephemeral details that burn into a child’s memory. It quickly becomes clear to us that Cáit’s family is not doing well.

It's okay, Eibhlín and Seán have a wardrobe full of clothes for her to wear. Cáit doesn’t notice that they’re made for a little boy. We do, just as we also notice the paintings of toy trains on the wallpaper in the spare room that just so happens to already have a child-sized bed.

It's a delicate film of small gestures and the slow building of trust. Crowley’s nurturing, achingly lovely Eibhlín is always reaching out to the sad, withdrawn little girl in need, while Bennett’s Seán is at first quite brusque and closed off, as if hesitant to allow another child into his orbit for fear of what might happen again.

We Irish can also be a bit florid, and there are moments when Bairéad comes perilously close to snapping his film’s gossamer spell. The cool precision of Kate McCullough’s cinematography is ill-served by a couple of slips into slow-motion that gild the lyrical lily. Most of the movie is so eloquently understated that even the slightest signs of plot rigging can feel like the filmmaker is pushing a little too hard. “The Quiet Girl” speaks loudest when it doesn’t raise its voice.

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