An Cailín Ciúin takes inspiration from Foster by Claire Keegan to make me sob and wish Ireland was a real place. As a quiet girl myself, I feel a deep connection to this film, not only in its content but with the fact I over analysed Keegan’s novella throughout my last two years of school, breaking down every sentence and pulling out every bit of emotional depth that is so vividly displayed in the short time we spend with this film. Foster is an 88 page book, technically a short story, so the film only had a limited amount of content to pull from it in order to make a feature length story. It pulls this off through quiet (girl) moments, letting time pass by without urgency.
The pace of this film is slow, dragging out the short story through those long, steady shots that are packed with visceral emotion, whether its Sean and Cait standing in the kitchen together for the first time alone or Cait and Eibhlin eating some crusty, dry weetabix as a skincare routine. I felt every second of this movie, starting with the alienation of Cait, not quite at home in her house, going to the dread of living with strangers, moving into the tentative moments of Cait and Sean learning each other, the comfortable living at the breakfast table, falling into the soft and sad accepting of saying goodbye and the final defiance of embracing the life she lived before.
Visually this film continues its soft theme with warm sunlight, inviting home decor and lush plants enclosing the found family in their own bubble. The aspect ratio is more square, allowing the frame to be smaller and more intimate while also allowing the camera to show vast distance between two characters on the edge of the screen. The shots are often quite steady, locked off and looking on in appreciation at the events of the summer. The only breaks we get from these steady shots are while Cait runs, instead, we get slow motion tracking shots, facing Cait as she sprints to the post box. Visuals break, the running is a theme throughout, Cait is being timed by Sean to get the post as quick as she can, yet we watch her in slow motion, removing the small pressure she may have put on herself to beat her own time. Anyway, the camera, am I right?
Quick check in with the music, pulling from the classic soft movies catalogue with plinky piano and plucky strings. It flows throughout from scene to scene, feels like its watching from afar like the camera, not overpowering the action or taking centre stage, just complimenting it all.
At the end of the day, music is audio, and audio is dialogue, dialogue is language, this one is in Irish. The source material isn’t in Irish at all, the choice to have the characters talk in Irish places it in a world that doesn’t really exist anymore, 80s Ireland was not a majority Irish speaking nation, so its strange to only have one character speak in only English. I thought it took nothing away from the feelings of the film, the language itself is ridiculous in every single way but I think people who don’t know the language will watch it like any other film that isn’t in their native tongue, reading and hearing sounds go by.
Finish time! This film has become comfort personified as a film, not a person. I imagine that I will come back to this movie many many times in my life to audibly cry as she runs to the car in the end. I would have loved to have been a part of making this film, bringing this to life would have been the most rewarding feeling. The other side of me is glad I didn’t even know it was about Foster, didn’t see clunky VFX, deal with difficult scheduling. I just got to lay down in bed, rent this on iTunes and cry in comfortable clothes. With that, síocháin amach!
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