I never read a blog--I never streamed AP--

A Quiet Passion

Crit

So languorous. So languorous. In none of Emily Dickinson's tens of thousands of impatient lines of tetrameter and trimeter is there a moment of languor, so I find director Terence Davies’s pacing an odd choice.

Equally strange is the expansion of an obscure friend of Dickinson's sister Vinnie, one Vryling Buffum (Catherine Bailey) into the poet's bosom friend and a full-fledged Oscar Wilde character.

That said, never for a moment did I disbelieve that Cynthia Nixon was Emily Dickinson, and if the core of the film is believable (as well as the nearest satellite to the core, if you'll pardon the mix, the eternally welcome Jennifer Ehle as Vinnie), I'll put up with elements that seem ill-considered.

Credit Davies, too, for smart use of the poetry--never obvious, save for a forgivable triplet of greatest hits near the end. And the one diegetic poem creates by far the sweetest moment of the film, maybe the only sweet moment, which only the crankiest tenure-denied associate professor could begrudge.