The Quiet

Blond, pretty Cuthbert plays Nina, a high-school cheerleader and queen bee of the cool crowd; dark, mysterious Belle (superb in The Ballad of Jack & Rose but squandered here) plays Dot, a deaf-mute orphan adopted by Nina’s creepy, overattentive father (Donovan) and detached, OxyContin-munching mother (Falco).

Concerned that association with a lip-reading Pre-Raphaelite goddess will injure her social standing, Nina becomes the most brutal of Dot’s many persecutors at school. Dot copes by slipping away to the music room whenever possible to polish her skills as a classical pianist. Her sensitive interpretation of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata attracts the interest of a nice-guy jock (Ashmore) with a learning disability; Dot throws him an animalistic poolside fuck but remains otherwise aloof and enigmatic.

Back at home, Nina gradually tempers her abuse of Dot, limiting it to confessional monologues about the deep, dark secret at the clichéd core of her family’s dysfunction (oh, you’ll never guess in a million years, so don’t even try). Dot in turn will accidentally reveal her own deep, dark secret (ditto). United by pain and piano duets, the girls formulate a violent plan of self-deliverance that will break the silence and shatter the smug suburban facade and whatnot.

Preposterous from start to finish, this overwrought mess will probably yield some campy laughs for those who like that sort of thing, but to us it represented nothing but a waste of time, film and a good cast.—Cliff Doerksen