Featured Image Credit: Curzon
Topics: Film and TV, Ireland
Rhiannon Ingle
It's fair to say that, this year, we haven't been short for excellent cinema.
Whether it was the latest Top Gun film or the independent new-kid-on-the-block, Aftersun, it's of no surprise that there was stacks of hopeful contenders to be named the best film of the year.
American review website for film and television, Rotten Tomatoes, also home of the Tomatometer, has shocked audiences by putting an unknown candidate in their number one place for their rundown of the Best Movies of 2022 Ranked.
Introducing the rundown, Rotten Tomatoes explains: "All eyes are on the film slate as 2022 represents the first year since the pandemic lockdown that saw theatres back at full capacity."
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With a short but sweet synopsis of some of the more memorable blockbusters of the year, Rotten Tomatoes gets straight into revealing what every film-buff is dying to know: what was 2022's all-time best film?
And the answer is...one that you probably have never heard of.
The Quiet Girl, written and directed by Colm Bairead, took the first-place trophy.
Released in May, the unknown drama has an impressive 100% rating on the site.
Set in rural Ireland in 1981, the story follows nine-year-old Cait who is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer.
The synopsis reads: "Quietly struggling at school and at home, she has learned to hide in plain sight from those around her. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth."
With an equally unknown cast including star Catherine Clinch who plays Cait, the Gaelic film is sure to be at the top of everyone's "to-watch" lists now.
Ccritics across the world have lavished praise and given support for Colm Bairead's The Quiet Girl.
Ryan Gilbey from the New Statesman said: "The director Colm Bairéad’s remarkable debut is invested with meaning, lyricism and life. The images sing but they also breathe."
Edward Porter from The Times offered his two-cents on the film: "...The film’s writer-director, Colm Bairéad, shows how a well-judged movie can come near to corniness but still be deeply poignant."
As well as this, journalist David Rooney wrote: "Few films explore both the shelter and the solitude of silence with the eloquence of Colm Bairéad’s gently captivating Irish-language drama The Quiet Girl," for the Hollywood Reporter.
And, lastly, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian dubbed Bairéad's film "a jewel."
"[A] deeply moving tale of rural Ireland already feels like a classic," the review concluded.
Well, we all know what we're going to see once the havoc of the holidays are over.