A Quiet Passion is a biopic about Emily Dickinson from her young adult years until her death and stars Cynthia Nixon. If you love the poet and her work, I would encourage you to see A Quiet Passion in theaters. I used to love poetry, but my love died once I went to law school. I saw A Quiet Passion because I love seeing films about women who go against the grain of society and live atypical lives.
I enjoyed A Quiet Passion, but I would have been a ruthless editor and cut out possibly 30 to 40 minutes of the film, particularly the sections that illustrated her poetry, specifically the passing of time during the Civil War and the visual adaptation of her poem about the bridegroom until family strife develops. I understand that saying, “I really enjoyed A Quiet Passion, but wish that they would cut out the poetry” is like watching Amadeus, but wishing they would cut out the music. It is the whole point of her life and the movie. If you are a lover of poetry, forgive my Philistine ways, but for others who feel as I do about poetry, you have been warned.
I only have one slight criticism of the casting A Quiet Passion. Both Emma Bell and Cynthia Nixon are masterful in their depiction of Dickinson, but Bell’s voice is naturally lower than Nixon. I found the vocal contrast disconcerting because usually as you get older, your voice gets lower, not higher. Otherwise they were perfect.
I adored several aspects of A Quiet Passion. A Quiet Passion does something that few films can do-it depicted a woman’s anger in contrast to the era’s drawing room setting. She is angry at herself, her opportunities, not fitting in, hypocrisy, double standards, the cheapening of the soul into a paint by the numbers theology, life. A Quiet Passion effectively depicts the struggle against the terrors of the soul and death versus the stern, joyless bullying of being told what a Christian should or should not do. If God really believes that lemonade is too sinful, I have no idea why anyone would want to know that Person. Dickinson never conflates God with the prevailing instruction of the day.
A Quiet Passion also illustrates Dickinson as she would have been seen then. She is not successful by any objective metric, and she is disappointed. Even the relationships that once brought her joy eventually turn bitterly into ashes. “You have a life. I have a routine.” Everything dies: friendships, people, hopes, ideals, and A Quiet Passion never tries to retroactively lessen the blows that life delivered to Dickinson. A friend just wanted her to take some anti-depressants, which perhaps would have helped, but I think that it is important to embrace the emotion appropriate to the situation even if that emotion is messy, uncomfortable and inconvenient. A Quiet Passion unflinchingly depicts the passage of time and the discomfort of death. My favorite visual moment is when the Dickinson family sits for a photograph portrait, and the characters slowly age before our eyes. (Side note: perhaps the brother should have been aged a little less-he looked as old as his father from that point on.)
A Quiet Passion is definitely not a feel good movie. A Quiet Passion is an unflinching portrait of an angry spinster and possible heretic who dies painfully, unsuccessfully and disappointingly. Posthumously being honored does not diminish her suffering. A Quiet Passion is the adult biopic that we need, not the one that we want.