The Quiet Girl, or An Cailín Ciúin in Irish, is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film, directed by Colm Bairéad and based on the novella Foster by Claire Keegan, published in 2010. Most of the film's dialogue is in Irish, with English being occasionally spoken.
The film centers on the titular protagonist Cáit, a shy and lonely nine-year-old girl who lives in Ireland during the 1980s in a rural community with her parents and siblings. Cáit has no friends or close companions, and her family is also indifferent towards her. Her parents choose to send her to spend the summer with her mother's cousin Eibhlín and her husband Seán Cinnsealach (Kinsella), who are farmers in a different county. Over the course of the time she spends with her new guardians, Cáit begins to enjoy love and security for possibly the first time in her life, and grows close to both Sean and Eibhlín, who grow to love and care for Cáit as if she were their own child. However, Cáit also discovers some painful truths about her new family.
The film currently holds the record as the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time, and has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, becoming the first Irish film to be nominated in the category's history.
This film provides examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Sean gently touches Cáit's head when they say goodbye at her parents' house.
- Apology Gift: After scolding Cáit harshly for going out of his sight and worrying him while he was working, Seán silently leaves a cookie on the kitchen table for Cáit to have and walks away, saying sorry in a very subtle way with the treat.
- Awful Wedded Life: Cáit's parents clearly do not get along and do not love each other very much, and it is lightly implied that their relationship may be abusive.
- Big Heroic Run: The final scene of Cáit running to catch her foster parents before they leave the property.
- Comforting Comforter: While they are outside at night, Sean stops Cáit to up the buttons on her coat. It showcases how he is finally able to bond with the girl.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Cáit is still wetting her bed at age nine which she feels embarrassed for but through Eibhlín's empathetic approach she loses this flaw quickly.
- Foreshadowing: Multiple examples, including:
- When Cáit's da drives away after neglecting to take her suitcase out of the boot, leaving her with only the clothes she's wearing, Cáit is given some boy's clothes that are way too big for her, but that she has to make do with. She later learns that they belonged to the Kinsella's son, who drowned in a slurry pit years ago.
- The wallpaper with train motifs. It makes sense once we know this used to be a boy's room.
- Eibhlín introduces Cáit to the well that is the source of the household's water, and warns her that she must be careful when drawing water from it. Later, Cáit falls in and nearly drowns when retrieving water by herself, in an incident that is horribly reminiscent of how the Kinsella's son died. However, she survives but catches a cold from the exposure.
- Foster Kid: Because of financial difficulties, Cáit is sent to be with her mother's sister for the summer.
- Gossipy Hens: During a wake, one of the townwomen volunteers to take a restless Cáit to their home to wait for Seán and Eibhlín. Unfortunately for Cáit, she's a blabbermouth who disdains practically everyone, and drops the bombshell that Seán and Eibhlín have a dead son.
- Happily Married: Sean and Eibhlín, in spite of the fact that their son died years ago in an accident.
- Jerkass
- Cáit's da is more interested in gambling and drinking than being a proper father, and actively ignores Cáit. When Cáit's parents are discussing what to do with her because they can't afford another mouth to feed when another baby's on the way, he dismisses Cáit's ma's side of the family as good-for-nothing.
- The nosy neighbor who volunteers to take Cáit from the wake. She calls Cáit a 'dope' repeatedly, crassly complains about Seán and Eibhlín behind their backs when she was friendly-like with them at the wake, mocks Cáit's outfit, and casually reveals Seán and Eibhlín had a son who drowned in a slurry pit with all the sympathy of a bored teenager.
- Long Last Look: When Sean and Eibhlín drive Cáit back at the end of summer, Cáit takes a wistful long look back at her foster home from the back of the car.
- No Name Given: Cáit's parents are never given names of their own, and are named in the credits as Mum and Da.
- Parental Neglect: Cáit's parents are at best distant and harried, and at worst are emotionally abusive. Cáit's da openly complains about her just being another mouth to feed to the people he's dumping her on.
- Shoot the Dog: In the end, Sean and Eibhlín have to return Cáit back to her parents. It's made abundantly clear in their interactions that neither of them really wants this.
- Shout-Out: A very discreet one to the famous "Run, Forrest, run!"" scene from Forrest Gump, when Sean asks Cáit to run and check the letterbox. The cinematography also is using slow-motion, and Cáit experiences a similar form of freedom.
- Shrinking Violet: Cáit, unsurprisingly.
- Significant Name Shift: When Cáit calls her foster father Sean "daddy" in the final moments of the film.
- Sleep Cute: In one scene we see Cáit sleeping on Sean's shoulder while they are watching TV.
- Title Drop: One of the neighbors says this of Cáit.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Cáit's da's response when Cáit returns home to restart schooling is to complain that Seán and Eibhlín didn't do anything. You know, the couple who took care of Cáit for an entire summer at their own expense.
