It’s a triumph in many ways. It has the audacity to show Irish men and women as real human beings, not the loquacious/charming or fighting/conniving “stage Irishmen” who were launched on the English stage in the 17th century and followed by Hollywood ever since.
The characters are farmers around 1981, when rural Ireland was poor, hunger strikers were dying in a Northern Ireland prison, small farms were common, and the only link with the world outside the village was the radio.
Little Cait
In the movie, the pre-adolescent protagonist is called Cait, but in the novella on which it is based, “Foster” by Claire Keegan, she is never named. The movie portrays her as a younger sibling who is bullied at school, but that background information is not in Keegan’s story. Nor is the movie’s heavy implication of her father as a philanderer.Cait’s parents have sent her to spend the summer with kinfolk. They are practicing the ancient Irish tradition of fosterage, in which families traded offspring in order to broaden children’s horizons and also form bonds between clans.
Over the course of the summer, as the girl lives with Kinsella and The Woman, as she calls the kinfolk with whom she is staying, she overcomes her fears and blossoms. The Woman accepts her without judgment or criticism and teaches her domestic arts. The Woman also coaches her in reading and buys her books and new clothes at a store, even as she suffers through the healing of her own son’s recent death.
In contrast to her own home, the Kinsellas’ life is orderly. Kinsella is particularly attached to Cait. In the story, unlike the movie, he bonds with her from the very beginning; later he coaches her in sprinting; he sands the soles of her new shoes so she won’t slip; he holds her hand when he walks her to the beach and reassures her to not be afraid of the waves.
Through the Eyes of Innocence
Rural Ireland 40 years ago had different norms and expectations from those advocated by elite influencers of today—and to its vast credit, “The Quiet Girl” is faithful to “Foster” and lets the story stand in its own time, on its own merits, according to the standards of its own time.Moreover, this is Cait’s story, as seen through her eyes—not through those of anybody else. This aspect is a great part of the film’s charm, along with beautiful cinematography and quiet, mood-perfect music. It is as if Cait kept a journal in which she wrote down what she saw and heard. Were she to read it after she’d grown up, she’d finally understand what had been going on. As adults, we understand the implications of the fact that Da hasn’t gotten in the hay yet because Ma has only now paid the men for last year, but for Cait, it is what it is.
A Clear Triumph
“The Quiet Girl” is a “rara avis” (rare thing) because it is a contemporary Irish film which does not take a slam the Church, priests, or nuns.It is a boon for Gaeilge, the Irish Gaelic language, which has struggled for survival since the Great Hunger of the mid-19th century and is now enjoying a bit of a revival. Gaeilge is not mentioned in the story, so the idea to make the film in Irish (subtitled in English, of course) was brilliant—one which works beautifully and reinforces its authenticity.
It is a triumph in its profession: It received the Berlin International Film Festival’s Grand Prix and a Special Mention from the Children’s Jury; The London Film Critics’ Circle award as the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year; three awards at the Dublin International Film Festival; the Valladolid International Film Festival Silver Spike and Audience Awards, and on and on.
Most of all, it is a gift because it is a profoundly moving story of the human heart, without special effects, without graphic scenes, without magic or fantasy, and without violence.
By the time Cait returns to her own home, she recognizes love, though, being Irish, articulating emotions is not part of an inborn skill set.
“She says what she has to say, no more,” Kinsella remarks, “May there be many like her.”
