The Quiet

The Quiet is a 2005 American psychological thriller film directed by Jamie Babbit and starring Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Martin Donovan, and Edie Falco. It focuses on a deaf-mute teenage orphan who is sent to live with her godparents. She soon becomes a sounding board for the family members, who confess their darkest secrets to her, including the incestous relationship between her godfather and his teenage daughter. The second feature film by Babbit after the 1999 comedy But I'm a Cheerleader, The Quiet was shot in Austin, Texas in 2004, the first film by the University of Texas's Burnt Orange production company. Cuthbert served as an associate producer of the film. Its soundtrack features songs by Low, Cat Power, Le Tigre, and numerous Beethoven piano sonatas. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before being acquired by Destination Films, who released it in the United States theatrically through Sony Pictures Classics in August 2005. The film was commercially unsuccessful but found success in DVD sales. Many critics at the time of its release dismissed it as sleazy, exploitative, and difficult to watch, with several noting that it was too serious to be satire, yet too campy to be taken seriously. Plot Following the accidental death of her deaf father, Dot, an orphaned teenager who is also deaf-mute, is sent to live in Meriden, Connecticut with her godparents, Paul and Olivia Deer, and their teenaged daughter, Nina. Dot and Nina had been friends in childhood, before Dot lost her hearing as a result of a medical condition. The aloof Nina resents Dot's presence in the home and insults her repeatedly. Meanwhile, Dot observes that Olivia, an unfulfilled interior designer who was close friends with Dot's mother, is an alcoholic with a prescription drug addiction. Late one night, while returning to her bedroom, Dot observes Paul and Nina having sex in Nina's bedroom, unbeknownst to them. It becomes clear that Nina and Paul have had a years-long incestuous relationship, which Nina uses as leverage against her father to get whatever she wants.