'The Quiet': Lurid melodrama never quite makes sense

Seven years ago, director Jamie Babbit made a consciously over-the-top satire of lesbian de-programming called But I'm a Cheerleader that left many curious how she would follow up such a brash debut.

Unfortunately, the answer has arrived with The Quiet, a lurid slice of suburban life so melodramatic that she probably wants us to take it seriously, an almost impossible task.

Sony Pictures Classics 'The Quiet' C- The verdict: A deaf teen welcomed into a suburban family contends with her jealous new sister and a terribly hokey script. Director: Jamie Babbit Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Edie Falco, Camilla Belle, Shawn Ashmore, Martin Donovan Run time: 96 minutes Release date: August 25, 2006 Rating: R for strong and disturbing sexual content, a scene of violence, language, drug content and brief nudity. See showtimes Behind the scenes •  Actress Elisha Cuthbert tackles taboos with pluck. •  Burnt Orange Productions brings a new meaning to student movies. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The Quiet'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Into an all-American — as in dysfunctional — home comes Dot (Camilla Belle, The Ballad of Jack & Rose), deaf and orphaned since the recent death of her widowed father. Her godparents, Paul (Martin Donovan) and Olivia (Edie Falco) Deer, welcome her warmly, which is a lot more than can be said of their daughter Nina (Elisha Cuthbert, The Girl Next Door), a golden-haired cheerleader unwilling to give up any of the household limelight.

Nina and her "mean girls" clique freeze out Dot, who lives in her own hermetically sealed world and lunches alone at her own high school cafeteria table. Dot's only refuge seems to be the music room, where she seats herself behind a grand piano when no one is looking and bangs out music by Beethoven. The deaf composer, get it?

Nina's quasi-sibling hatred only increases in intensity when basketball star Connor (Shawn Ashmore) spies Dot mid-concert, grows fond of her and pours out his innermost thoughts to her, secure in the knowledge that she cannot hear him. When he invites Dot to the big school dance, Nina flies into a vengeance-seeking rage.

Meanwhile, back on the homefront, Olivia pops so many pills that she turns catatonic, as Falco handles the thankless assignment, bringing to mind the similarly emotionless Allison Janney in American Beauty. As for Nina's dad, he has an even darker secret, one which most moviegoers will figure out long before the screenplay by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft wants us to.

Although it never adds up to much, Babbit does muster an atmosphere of foreboding, which we find ourselves wishing would reach full Carrie mode. Nina turns out to be the louder ticking time bomb, threatening mayhem with a household iron as she presses her beloved cheerleader outfit while standing around in her undies, strictly for the eye candy value.

In retrospect, it is Belle who manages to acquit herself best with a role that never quite makes sense, but affords her some expressive, silent sequences. Surely she will find other film work and then quietly drop The Quiet from her biography.