The Quiet Girl
Super LTD | Release Date: December 16, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMar 8, 2023
It's an extraordinary, tiny, intimate, and deeply touching story of a childhood suddenly filled with that most fragile of gifts: hope. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 1, 2023
Told from the perspective of its 9-year old protagonist, Cáit (Catherine Clinch), writer-director Colm Bairéad’s adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2010 novella, “Foster” is as beautiful as it is devastating. Read full review
100
ColliderEmma KielyFeb 24, 2023
An Cailín Ciúin is one of the most masterful meditations on childhood, family, and love. Read full review
80
EmpireJohn NugentDec 12, 2022
It’s a simple but artfully effective debut feature from Irish filmmaker Colm Bairéad, with a remarkable, heartbreaking debut performance from Clinch, whose face betrays anxieties she doesn’t yet fully understand. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattFeb 24, 2023
With its English subtitles and small-scale epiphanies, Girl is the kind of quiet film that could easily get lost in a noisy season; lean in anyway, and listen. Read full review
90
Little White LiesAlicia HaddickDec 12, 2022
It’s by addressing grief in its purest form that we empathise with the pain that can make us willing to open up again, pave over the cracks, and wound a broken heart. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleDec 16, 2022
The Quiet Girl is both the best reason movies should look to more compact narratives for adaptation and, in a few instances, indicative of where cinematic choices can leave unnecessary footprints. But everything in this heartfelt tale is made with the deepest sincerity, and gently packed with soulful portrayals and lovely imagery. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedFeb 10, 2023
The Quiet Girl, made with sensitivity and care by first-time writer-director Colm Bairead, combines serene editing, quiet reserves of strength, and subdued performances that allow you to think and feel instead of just watch. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyFeb 23, 2023
Foster is masterful in evoking a child's point of view. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 24, 2023
The Quiet Girl is, quite simply, a genuine work of art by a genuinely empathetic artist, and one of the single most moving, heartfelt, and heartbreaking movies from any country in the last decade. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 28, 2023
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganDec 12, 2022
The Quiet Girl is thoughtful, spiritual in its stillness but alive with the hum of the land and the emotions it guards. Editing by the experienced John Murphy finishes the work with a precision that also smoothes this rites of passage story. Certainly, this is a quiet film, but it speaks in high volumes. Read full review
90
Screen RantRachel LaBonteFeb 24, 2023
The Quiet Girl is an earnest depiction of family and unexpected connections that lingers long after the credits roll. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineSteven ScaifeFeb 19, 2023
The Quiet Girl earns its most emotionally powerful scenes because of the way that it so gracefully convinces us that it wasn’t even building toward them in the first place. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMartin TsaiFeb 22, 2023
The Quiet Girl has a meaningful message on nurturing. But with so little of consequence going on, it’s crucial to get the emotions precisely right. Without voiceover narration tying everything together, some scenes feel out of place, random, or offer little beyond aesthetics. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 22, 2023
Bairead’s sensitive and heartfelt film, which is debuting in many theaters Friday, is a stirring testament to what’s possible on a modest scale with a few well-chosen words. Read full review
95
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 23, 2023
As superb as any feature debut in recent memory, its power derived from its marriage of graceful writing, subtle direction, and unbearably expressive performances. Movies don’t come much more exquisitely heartbreaking than this. Read full review
50
The Film StageEthan VestbyFeb 20, 2023
The Quiet Girl‘s tone and form is too locked-in, never surprising. One almost wants a little more overt sentimentality to puncture the delicacy, even if a syrupy final montage seems to deliver on this, unfortunately, too little too late. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 12, 2022
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. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyNov 2, 2022
This is a work of unfailing restraint, which makes its stealth emotional heft all the more remarkable. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeDec 12, 2022
The action is unsettling throughout. There is a pervasive sense of unspoken menace lurking just outside the frame (or somewhere in the near past or future). But it is also a celebration of uncomplicated human kindness. Read full review
90
The New York TimesLisa KennedyDec 15, 2022
Although The Quiet Girl — Ireland’s entry for the best international feature Oscar — is not holiday fare, there may not be a movie more expressive of the season’s benevolent ethos than this hushed work about kith and kindness. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneFeb 27, 2023
Finely framed by the cinematographer Kate McCullough, The Quiet Girl is an idyll, yet its placid surface is puckered by anxiety. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeDec 12, 2022
It’s one of the most exquisitely realised films of the year. Read full review
100
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthDec 16, 2022
Gorgeously realized and crafted with homespun care, this delicate and heartbreaking drama is one of the year’s best films. Read full review
50
TheWrapDan CallahanDec 15, 2022
The ending of The Quiet Girl is modestly dramatic compared to what has preceded it, but the emotional charge we are presumably supposed to feel has been cut off by all the contemplative long shots that have kept us for so long at arm’s length. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangDec 12, 2022
On occasion the deep investment in the long silences and sorrowful gazes that mostly make up Cáit’s life can teeter close to preciousness. When it does, though, there’s always Clinch’s superbly modulated performance, and the way the compassionate camera lavishes on Cáit all the attention that quiet, nice kids like her rarely receive, to bring us back onside. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithDec 19, 2022
Low-key indie dramas sometimes overstate the understatement to a degree that becomes dull or even exasperating, but The Quiet Girl is consistently fascinating throughout its 90-minute runtime. Read full review
100
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 7, 2023
The Quiet Girl is that rare thing: a work of storytelling that speaks most loudly when it is saying nothing. Read full review
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