A Quiet Passion

Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle play Emily and Vinnie Dickinson

Terence Davies' slow cinematic burn meshes well with a mordant vision of Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion. Davies is one of the least flashy directors in the Anglophonic cinema, but his melancholic tenor is perfectly suited to this poetic genius and tormented shut-in. The evocation of 19th century New England salon culture is superbly rendered in acting, costume and set design. Davies' script and direction portray Dickinson's life as a reproach to an insular and patriarchal culture. This feminist rebuke flows naturally from Davies' career long sympathy with life's outsiders.

Cynthia Nixon's readings and spasmodic physicality are a capstone to her career. She has often been cast as a put-upon ugly duckling, but she shows how Dickinson overcame great physical and mental anguish and and a hostile culture to create a lasting testament. In my youth way back in the 20th Century, Dickinson was embalmed in the public eye as a starchy Victorian, but Nixon, though encased by corset and bustle, presents her as a tart terror seething with resentment. Like Jo Carol Pierce, she blames God. Certainly Dickinson's work has more teeth to it than her old "Belle of Amherst" image, though I wouldn't go as far as Camille Paglia who compares her to the Marquis de Sade.

The rest of the cast is generally good. Jennifer Ehle is always dependable and Keith Carradine registers with his most interesting performance in some time as Dickinson's pater. Only Duncan Duff, as Dickinson's wayward brother, strikes a false note. The script sometimes compresses events too tidily, as with the introduction of the Civil War into the narrative, but, on the whole, I found this to be one of the cinematic treats of 2017. (12/22/17)