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75Overall this is a compelling and sometimes disturbing motion picture.
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75You still marvel at the visuals -- cinematographer M. David Mullen has done miracles with what must have been a microscopic budget -- but you're less invested in the tale. Which is a pity, because it might have been a perfect little potboiler. As it stands, it's merely pretty darned good of its type.
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50An unconvincing and uninvolving psychological thriller.
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50The few effective scenes in The Quiet suggest that the film might have worked as a kinked-up Hitchcockian thriller rather than the drab, serious drama it turns out to be.
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40This ludicrously plotted drama of incestuous sexual abuse is only partially redeemed by its strong performances.
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40Perhaps future generations of film scholars will embrace The Quiet as a B-movie that problematizes the oppressive gaze, but for now, it's a misfire.
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40Babbit is skilled at creating atmosphere and mood, all of it creepy or sodden, and actresses Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle put their hearts into their roles, which are, unfortunately, encased in a sleazoid TV movie of the week tarted up in art-school clothes.
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Thematically the movie never reaches beyond the ready-for-prime-time mentality that specializes in psychological shorthand.
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38A screamingly bad melodrama whose message seems to be that people who think they're talking to a deaf person admit things they wouldn't admit to themselves. Silence, please.
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38Trapped between edgy art flick and exploitation psychothriller, The Quiet manages to be neither, and manages to be pretty awful in the bargain.
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38Characters already too wicked to be credible start doing stuff simply too stupid to be believed, with no help from a cast way too overmatched to be useful.
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30The Quiet is best for cheap laughs by jaded moviegoers with absolutely nothing better to do with their time.
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It never quite settles on whether it's a "Mean Girls" burlesque of teen life, an "American Beauty"-style bad-things-in-the-suburbs drama, or a wayward horror film. And it certainly never reconciles itself to successfully pulling off a hybrid of the three.
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30Neither ambitious enough to take seriously nor sleazy enough to enjoy, The Quiet flirts with the trappings of exploitation cinema without going all the way.
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30A Lifetime movie on crack, The Quiet dredges up every lurid cliche from the well of teen hormonal havoc in a tale of dysfunctional family meltdown that seems unsure whether to push for suburban-Gothic psychosexual excess or tongue-in-cheek malevolence.
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30Creepy, creepy, creepy -- and not in a good way.
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25A movie of good intentions and awful results.
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25A repugnant little indie black comedy, poorly acted in hideous-looking digital video, guaranteed to send audiences fleeing for the nearest shower.
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25The desperation TV stars must feel to be on the big screen is the only explanation for Edie Falco and Elisha Cuthbert's appearance in The Quiet, a creepy family drama that reeks of pretentiousness.
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25Too confused to provide any thrills, even indecent ones.
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25Babbit clumsily underlines emotional moods.
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25This dank and rhythmless ''psychological'' potboiler was directed by Jamie Babbit, who made 2000's "But I'm a Cheerleader," and though she has shifted tones from shrill camp to moody angst in The Quiet, she still thinks in stereotypes so thin that they put you to sleep the moment they open their mouths.
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25The script drowns out its ideas with arch melodramatic devices and ridiculous twists while Babbitt smothers even the daylight scenes in an oppressive gloom.
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0With its pathetic characters, questionable logic, and wall-to-wall Beethoven, the movie is a serious contender for this year's Golden Turkey award.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 8
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Mixed: 1 out of 8
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Negative: 1 out of 8
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NathanL.7Strong performances, the story was okay. But overall, better than I expected.
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ScottM8
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[Anonymous]3tried way too hard & just missed the mark, in my opinion. I kept checking my watch.