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Trailer for "The Quiet"

Sitting through The Quiet, I couldn’t help thinking of the films it tries to emulate. There’s the high school cruelty of Carrie, the shocking frankness of a Neil LaBute drama (at least before LaBute started remaking horror flicks like this week’s The Wicker Man), the father-daughter incest of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the ticking clock of High Noon. Unfortunately, this excruciatingly slow movie more closely resembles sleazy soap opera junk like Poison Ivy and Two Moon Junction. It is pretentious exploitation masquerading as arthouse fare, full of Big Lies and Bigger Secrets. Unlike Todd Solondz’s Happiness, it seeks to titillate with the very depravity it pretends to condemn.

Camilla Belle stars as Dot, a loner deaf girl sentenced to live with suburbanite relatives after the deaths of her parents. Belle held my attention whenever she was on screen; it’s too bad such a strong performance is wasted in such a trashy movie. Under her observant gaze, what begins as a drama devolves into a sexual tease, then makes a dull turn into murder thriller territory in the laughable final act.

Elisha Cuthbert, who graduated from the TV series 24 to crap like House of Wax and The Girl Next Door, plays Dot’s bitchy cousin, who gets most of the naughty dialogue. She’s pretty good here, and her predilection for potty-mouthed roles assures her a future on Cinemax. Hal Hartley veteran Martin Donovan plays Cuthbert’s father, who confuses the roles of mother and daughter. Even an actor as thoughtful as Donovan is unable to make this dad sympathetic after we see him in bed with his daughter, a scene that made me want to bolt the theater. Edie Falco, who’s already perfected the role of pathetic hausfrau on The Sopranos, plays the mother, whose painkiller addiction blinds her to her husband’s perversity.

Director Jamie Babbit cut her teeth helming TV series like Alias and Gilmore Girls, and I fail to see how this is a step up for her. I don’t understand why anyone would want to make a movie like this, or who would want to see it. The middle-aged men who attend movies like this alone are likely to be disappointed that Falco exhibits the only significant nudity.