The Quiet Girl

The novella Small Things Like These gave Irish author Claire Keegan international name recognition. So, a 2022 award-winning film, based on her short story “Foster,” is now getting noticed, too.

It should. The Quiet Girl is a spellbinding, heart-aching tale of 9-year-old Cáit who is lifted out of neglect and settled into love. It will remind the Christian viewer of Psalm 68:6: “God sets the lonely in families.”

We first meet Cáit in a household washed with noise and little cruelties. Her father is drinking his income while her mother, heavily pregnant, cleans and cooks. The large family likes to be mean, and just when Cáit could use some kindness, there’s none to be had.

But she’s been promised to Mother’s distant cousin—to Eibhlín and her husband Sean—for the summer. They work a dairy. Eibhlín warms immediately to Cáit, who begins to emerge.

Child actor Catherine Clinch captures well the intelligent Cáit who bears witness to it all. Cáit examines the sky with its lit clouds before turning her face toward her father’s profile as he drives a hitchhiker who seems more familiar than chance permits. We see her examine the new house and grounds—and Seán with his cold good-nights.

This was Clinch’s debut. She won the Irish Film &Television Award (IFTA) for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her mother is the Irish recording star Méav.

Colm Bairéad wrote the screenplay from Keegan’s 2010 short story and directed it—his first feature-length film. His efforts garnered him an IFTA for Best Director and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Cleona Ní Chualaoí, his wife, served as the film’s producer.

This story of near strangers caring for a lonely child may inspire viewers to look around them and notice other lonely people who need to be “set” in loving families.

The movie is rated PG-13 with mild profanity and mature themes of dysfunctional families and grief. (Hulu, Amazon Prime Video)