Review of A Quiet Passion (2016) by K Nife C — 07 Jun 2017

When I recall the imaginings that I had when I first read the poetry of Emily Dickinson, I would be hard pressed to find a more accurate simulation of them than what is present in "A Quiet Passion".

What I failed to take into account with those visions was the puritanical life that she was steeped in and how it affected her sorrowful yet poised disposition. Not only are we treated to a well-crafted biopic but also the story of a family's struggle with faith, gender roles, and sense of duty to each other.

Dickinson's poetry gently nudges each scene on to the next as the camera quietly pans through the richly simulated Civil War-era/antebellum Massachusetts household her family shared. The rich ambiance of the candlelit conversations and the sunny walks full of wit bring what at first seems to be amateurish stilted performances into context.

Obviously, director Terrence Davies captured these performances to be as such, but I still couldn't shake how unnatural much of the dialogue seemed. It is, however, effective at placing you there to feel the intellectual claustrophobia that women endured at that juncture in American history.

Dickinson poured all of her strength into her poetry because she had no other option to thrive in such gilded circumstance. The restrictive and repressive environment fine tuned her skills as she contemplated eternity and became a timeless wordsmith, one of the greatest American poets.

She would probably take no pride in the vanity of a biopic, but her story makes for a wonderful meditation of faith and womanhood that seems strangely timely. Cynthia Nixon captures much of these subtleties in her performance as Dickinson and has demonstrated herself to be an actress of many capabilities.

Ultimately, "A Quiet Passion" is a slow, contemplative piece of film that's not for everybody but is crucial in understanding such an important figure in literary history.