900 Years of British Agriculture

Running Time 91 mins

Ratings Info 4-5 Stars

Director(s) Colm Bairéad

Cast includes Bruno Ganz, Juliane Köhler, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes

Nominations & Awards 12 wins from 19 nominations

The Guardian

This beautiful and compassionate film from first-time feature director Colm Bairéad, based on the novella “Foster”by Claire Keegan, is a child’s eye look at our fallen world; already it feels to me like a classic.

Crowley and Bennett give heart-wrenchingly excellent performances.

As this long, hot summer progresses with the endlessness of childhood, Kate McCullough’s superb cinematography and Emma Lowney’s production design create a magically beautiful new world for Cáit ………….. almost every shot is a vividly composed, painterly gem. ……….. It is a jewel.

Empire

With dialogue almost entirely in Irish……….The dialogue, when it comes, is gentle and lyrical………… and even if you’re not an Irish speaker, you’ll find beauty in the language.

With artfully sedate camerawork ………. and naturalistic cinematography from director of photography Kate McCullough, Bairéad’s debut film finds a comfort in stillness. A gorgeous minimalist score from Stephen Rennicks (“Normal People”) augments the effect.

The New Statesman

With his remarkable film about a timid child sent to live with relatives in rural Ireland, Colm Bairéad provides a study in wordless communication.………….“There’s nothing wrong with it, not a word,” remarked the novelist David Mitchell of Claire Keegan’s short story “Foster”, set in rural Ireland in 1981. The same applies to the film adaptation, “The Quiet Girl”, though there aren’t many words in it.

Clinch, a 12-year-old newcomer with wide eyes and a slow blink, makes Cáit timid yet vivid.

Variety

There are different types of quiet. There’s the quiet of peace and serenity, and the quiet of repression and shame. There’s the quiet of contented, absorbing work.  “The Quiet Girl” has an ear finely attuned to all those types of hush, and to the tender feelings they can contain.

Nine-year-old Cáit, played in a lovely, worried debut by Catherine Clinch (if you’re looking for the next Saoirse Ronan, you might well have found her here) is never going to be loud.