Lesbian director Jamie Babbit has a resume that includes a host of light dramatic TV shows with primary female teenage characters ( Gilmore Girls, Nip/Tuck and Wonderfalls ) and a delightful parody movie that found the girls talking about and doing things that GLBT audiences loved ( the winning lesbian comedy But I'm a Cheerleader ) . As these projects have shown, Babbit has an enviable track record when it comes to eliciting strong performances from teenage actresses ( or young actresses playing teens ) . She gets two more from Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle with her new feature, The Quiet, a dark and unsettling movie that's a 180, materially speaking, from Babbit's usual fare.
There have been many compelling stories that revolve around the effect a deaf/mute character has on those around him or her. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Piano and the genre's masterpiece, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, are but a few stand-out examples. Babbit, working from a first-time feature script by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft, has crafted a memorable addition to the canon. The picture's set in another of those anonymous, upscale suburbs—the land of American Beauty and The Ice Storm—where both parents and children are narcotized, teenagers take venal pleasure in their verbal cruelty and individuals who march to a different drummer are in for a world of trouble.
When we first glimpse the dark-haired, blank-faced Dot ( Belle ) , she's lost in a crowd at her new high school and in voiceover she reveals, 'When I was in a whole crowd of people I felt like nobody'; however, on-camera she's mute—and apparently deaf. Dot has recently lost her father, and has come to live with her godparents, Olivia and Paul ( Edie Falco and Martin Donovan ) , and their über-bitch cheerleader daughter, blond vixen Nina ( Cuthbert ) . The makings of a modern-day Carrie seem about to unfold.
Though the usual taunting of the 'ugly' girl ( although Dot couldn't be more beautiful ) comes right on cue, as do the revelations about Dot's new family's dysfunctions, the movie begins to swerve into a much trickier, more emotionally complex area that makes it, if not much less predictable, more emotionally satisfying. One complication is that of the school's hunk, Connor ( X-Men's Shawn Ashmore ) , becoming intrigued by Dot and pursuing her—after overhearing her play a beautiful Beethoven piece in the darkened music room when she thinks she's alone.
Slowly, Dot's expressionless face and demeanor become irresistible to the characters who reveal their secrets and yearnings to her as she, in turn, fills us in on her background in voiceover ( often while playing another of those exquisite Beethoven pieces ) . With some encouragement, each begins to project the response and validation that they are looking for onto Dot. The confessions of the male characters, the father and Connor, are unsettling but Nina, in desperate need of Dot's apparent inner assurance, finally realizes she has found an ally. A bond forms between the two, kind of like Glinda and Elphaba in Wicked, and the film ratchets up the melodrama. Though the relationship doesn't become physical, there's a distinct, palpable physical intimacy between Dot and Nina in their later scenes that carry a distinct erotic charge.
Donovan and Falco, who are both such talented, natural actors that their work is easily overlooked, turn in expert support, as does Ashmore in a tough part that's alternately sunny and creepy. As noted, the two leading women, Cuthbert and Belle ( so moving in another tale of surburban ennui, The Chumscrubber ) , do excellent work. Depending on your read, this psychological drama is helped—or overstated—by the fact that the family's sprawling home is being redecorated by the mother and is mostly empty, and that the pretty but dissonant score composed of gongs, chimes and tinkling pianos that echo in the hollow rooms is by ambient musician Jeff Rona. I liked both and much else in this eerie little drama, too.
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With the international success of Women on the Verge of a Breakdown in 1988, the rest of the world caught on to what devoted followers of gay filmmaker Pedro AlmodÃ"var had already figured out: an exciting, vibrant, blazingly original talent was flourishing in the Spanish cinema.
Like Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen before him, AlmodÃ"var brought an entirely new look and cast to the movies. Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Victoria Abril, Rossy de Palma ( the human Modigliani ) and Penelope Cruz are some of his extended cinema family. Like other great filmmakers, AlmodÃ"var's output has deepened and matured with the subsequent years, but he has always infused his films with both the unabashed homages that could only come from a passionate movie fanatic and a continual spotlight on the sexually disenfranchised—not just gays and lesbians but, more often, transsexuals. AlmodÃ"var has always treated our people ( in our many incarnations ) with the ultimate compliment: He has portrayed us as complete and complex—not just clichéd, limp-wristed jokes.
Beginning on Sept. 1, the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, is presenting a film fest of Almodovar's best. The film tribute, a career overview, is titled Viva Pedro!, and is being sponsored by Sony Pictures Classics. It features nine of the maestro's best—from the seminal Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown to what I think is his great masterpiece, All About My Mother ( 1999 ) . Other titles in the series include Talk to Her, Flower of My Secret, Live Flesh, Law of Desire, Matador and the much-loved 2004 thriller Bad Education. Call 773-871-6604 for screening info or visit www.musicboxtheatre.com .
Check out my archived reviews at www.windycitytimes.com or www.knightatthemovies.com . Feedback can be left at the latter Web site.
