A Quiet Passion: Some Might Even Say...Too Quiet...

Emily Dickinson spent most of her life in her family home, going about her business and writing. So Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion, which I caught at the Philadelphia Film Festival this past weekend, is hardly surprising in its muted tone. However, for the things that the film chooses to highlight, its "quiet passion" might be a little too reflexive to hold an audience's interest.

The story begins as Emily Dickinson is leaving seminary school to return home to her family, where she would go on to spend the rest of her life. As playful as she is with her words, Emily seems to hide a spiritedness that she's over-aware of and that she's uncomfortable showing to others. While she publishes poems here and there, as she ages she becomes more and more reclusive and bitter, a mental state that seems to be mimicked in her poetry.

I always have a problem with biopics. Especially ones like this one, which reminds me so much of last year's Mr. Turner. It spends so much time in simply following the character (or maybe its interpretation of the character) that there ends up being no room for history or context -- or even entertainment. A Quiet Passion leaves a lot to be desired. From the choice in casting Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson to the (in my opinion) overly-wrought dialogue, there really isn't a ton here to hold your attention unless you're really into long shots of completely silent rooms. We get it. She was quiet. She was passionate. Can we speed this up please.

I wish that they could've infused a little more action into the film. While Emily is a solitary creature, the only chatty relief during the film comes from her sister, Vinny (Jennifer Ehle), who treats Emily with an unending amount of kindness and restraint, and their neighbor Ms. Buffam (Catherine Bailey), who reads as the period's Samantha Jones. But even this dialogue is so laborious that it doesn't seem authentic. Where I imagine the director/writer Terence Davies thought that Emily would enjoy "sparring" with close friends and neighbors, the language is as clipped and as hard to follow as an episode of Gilmore Girls. And with dialogue that doesn't ring super authentic, it's hard to get a taste for who these characters are. As with any historical period drama, directors are left to fill in the gaps. But I'm willing to bet that one of America's most celebrated poets had to have been more interesting than this. I'm sure there must be a better balance between historical accuracy and entertainment. 

"Hang on, let's get a 15-min shot of her reading this piece of paper.

And no voice-over of what it says."

I also wasn't thrilled with the handling of Emily's death, or that of her parents. While there's something to be said for authenticity, there wasn't a ton to take away from watching Emily physically die. Bright's Disease sounds horrible, but I was more annoyed that no one seemed to acknowledge her extreme back pains and seizures throughout her life, than to marvel at everyone's devotion to her as she breathed her last breath.

All in all, I found this movie annoying (if you couldn't tell). What a fascinating life to cover, and yet her poems are read in Nixon's irritating voice with a lack of [quiet] passion. I would have liked to see someone else cast as the lead, and with more of a story to tell than just following the poet around. It's wonderful to offer a peek at the life of a person that you know, but for anyone who isn't familiar with the life of Emily Dickinson this will just read as a slow film.

4 outa 10. 

(Disclaimer: This trailer is misleadingly interesting. There was almost no music in this film.)