A Quiet Passion

A Quiet Passion. UK (PG) 125 mins. 2.30pm & 5.30pm
Cynthia Nixon gives a career-best, tour-de-force performance as the legendary 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson in the luminous and intensely moving new film from award-winning filmmaker Terence Davies (Distant Voices Still Lives, The House of Mirth), named by The Guardian as ‘Britain’s greatest living director’.
Born into privilege in 1830, Emily Dickinson spent most of her life on her parents’ estate in Armherst, Massachusetts. In her youth, the introverted Emily is depicted as a fiercely intelligent young woman who exchanges forthright opinions on life and art – and, more particularly, on the place of women in a patriarchal society.
Stunning in both its sumptuous production design and also in the respect and love that it brings to its subject, the seamless manner in which Dickinson’s sharp-sighted verse is integrated into the narrative is one of A QUIET PASSION’s many joys. Davies’ portrait may just be the perfect match of filmmaker, actress and subject.