MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Film round-up: May 13, 2022
MARIA DUARTE reviews The Quiet Girl, Father Stu, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson and Vortex
The Quiet Girl, a powerful coming-of-age drama
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Quiet Girl (12A)
Directed by Colm Bairead
★★★★
SET in rural southern Ireland in 1981, this very intimate yet understated and quietly powerful coming-of-age drama explores child neglect and grief through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl.
Writer-director Colm Bairead’s impressive debut feature is an Irish-language adaptation of the short story Foster by Claire Keegan, which centres on Cait (astounding newcomer Catherine Clinch), one of four siblings, sent away by her dysfunctional and impoverished family to stay with distant relatives over the summer while her pregnant mother deals with the new baby.
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