Cy Carter (Dax) and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (Olive) as the young married couple enduring A Quiet Little MarriageLoud and fearful
By Don Simpson
Winner of an audience award at Austin Film Festival and my pick for the best film of the narrative feature competition (Note: I was not able to view the winner – Nobuyuki Miyake’s Lost & Found), writer-director Mo Perkins’ A Quiet Little Marriage is an improvised (a la John Cassavetes) tale of a young, fault-filled marriage. The story is brutally realistic; the dialogue and the performances are skillfully subdued and the cinematography is perfectly natural. The ending twist is a bit trite, but otherwise the only “fault” of A Quiet Little Marriage is that the writing plays second fiddle to the acting.
(A Quiet Little Marriage screens Nov. 7, 7 p.m.; Nov. 8, 3:45 p.m.)
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