In advance of the screening of A Quiet Passion at the Toronto International Film Festival (it debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February), Focus Features has released a new trailer for Terrence Davies’ film in which Cynthia Nixon stars as Emily Dickinson. On the surface, a title like A Quiet Passion sounds like code for “a boring biopic,” and early reviews of the film were split as to whether its own passion was just quiet or simply nonexistent.
Variety called it Terrence Davies’ (director of The House of Mirth, The Deep Blue Sea and the very-recent Sunset Song) “most mannered and least fulfilling work to date,” while the Hollywood Reporter said that “the film can’t escape an underlying static quality that extinguishes the flame before it can get burning.” In the same round of reviews that came out of Berlin, however, the Guardian said that “it is Davies’ ability to invest even the most apparently-humdrum moments with some form of intense radiance that sustains his film” and in a glowing, five-star review, the Independent compared it to Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and said that it’s “an exceptional film with a searing central performance from Cynthia Nixon.”
The film will open in the UK on November 18. As Indiewire notes, it doesn’t yet have a US release date, but it could get picked up for distribution at TIFF.
Watch the trailer: