A strawberry blonde kindergarten teacher, carrying foil wrapped baked goods ushers us into the most disturbing film to come out of SXSW 2022. SOFT & QUIET, directed expertly by Beth de Araújo, centers around Emily (Stefanie Estes) and a group of other women she has gathered to form a club of like-minded individuals. In the film’s first interaction, we see Emily instruct a young boy at the school to scold the janitor for nothing other than doing her job, under the guise of him “standing up for himself.” If you want to afford Emily some grace initially, you can convince yourself that she’s just a little quirky, and that this inappropriate reaction has nothing to do with the fact that this janitor happens to not be white. However, that delusion is shattered quickly and definitively at the 15-minute mark when the first meeting of the Daughters for Aryan Unity begins and the true nature of this gathering is revealed.
In this moment, the viewpoint of SOFT & QUIET becomes crystal clear, these women are not the heroes of this story. There is no way that the audience could sympathize with these characters, and just for good measure, we see the extremities of what they are capable of, truly cementing their capacity for evil as a group and as individuals. They giggle over the use of white power gestures in the same way you would giggle over ordering dessert for the table at a restaurant. The atrocities do not stop with microaggressions such as this though. Things spiral further out of control when the women encounter two mixed race sisters, one of whom is a figure from Emily’s past, and the viewer proceeds to watch a hate crime be conceived and executed in a matter of minutes.
SOFT & QUIET sets itself up with a challenging barrier to entry in that viewers will not want to connect with these characters on any level. Granted, there really is not a whole lot to connect with in the first place. They speak and behave in a way that could seem cartoonish, if not for the fact that these outlandish statements could have been taken verbatim from incomprehensible Facebook rants, or right-wing tyrades heard on the news. SOFT & QUIET asks you to confront the fact that these people are not as far off from our reality as we would like to think. But then of course, the events in SOFT & QUIET are taken to another level altogether. Something that had already gotten out of hand at the movie’s start rapidly festers and accelerates into something actionable and irredeemably evil.
The most remarkable aspect of SOFT & QUIET is that all of these outrageous events take place over the course of one afternoon, in real time, through one continuous take. It is as ambitious as it is suffocating. As the viewer, you are not afforded any breaks because it is all happening right now. It is unbelievably impressive the amount of teamwork that had to have gone into making that successful, but as with anything as experimental as SOFT & QUIET is, there are times where it misses the mark. There are moments, usually brief, where the camera is entirely blocked and you can’t see anything that is going on. This is most notable and detrimental at the end of the movie, after the sun has set, and the last several minutes are in complete darkness. Some momentum gets lost at this point as it is difficult to fully engage when we are left to fill in the gaps of what is happening for so long. At such a pivotal moment too, it would have been nice to have seen the actors’ faces considering how locked in and engaged they are for the whole runtime. However, far and away, the nature of filming is so dynamic, alive, and exhilarating, that it makes SOFT & QUIET worth watching by that virtue alone.
In the face of the sheer intensity of this style of filming, it is nothing short of masterful how natural and effortless the performances from all of the lead actors (Estes, Olivia Luccardi, Dana Millican, Eleanore Pienta, Cissy Ly, and Melissa Paulo) are. They show us who they are through the vast depths of their hatred and cruelty, also highlighting the specificity of these feelings with their ability to turn on a dime. Without the standard device of scene breaks, SOFT & QUIET is instead segmented by dramatic and clear tonal shifts defined by these performances as well as the affective score by composer Miles Ross.
SOFT & QUIET demonstrates the horror of indoctrination and the devastating way in which something so terrible can happen so quickly. This group of women are all lonely and they all feel unheard, and they have found various groups of people to assign blame to for all their feelings of inadequacy. That is, of course, an explanation and not an excuse, as people feel lonely every day without committing multiple felonies. The events of SOFT & QUIET are painful to endure and it forces you to sit with that discomfort for the full 90 minutes. It is far from a satisfying watch, but maybe it shouldn’t be. These women go so far that it begs the question of if there even could be a satisfying conclusion to the horrible actions that have taken place. There is nothing that could make things right again beyond a time machine, so we are forced to stew in the unpleasant reality of the situation. Any fun that may be had laughing at the expense of the delusional women of SOFT & QUIET is deftly taken away from the audience. Jokes are all well and good, but people who really think this way are unfortunately all too real and all too dangerous.
This is not a fun movie. It is uncomfortable, full of teeth grinding tension and incredibly violent in the physical and the emotional sense. SOFT & QUIET lives so firmly in the world of extremes that it would be comical if it weren’t so horrific. The content and the way that content is handled is bound to be divisive among viewers, but the sheer feat of the filmmaking will remain a universal truth. This recommendation however, does come along with a healthy dose of caution because the grueling and upsetting nature of the film has the capacity to genuinely affect people. For those who do go along for the ride, SOFT & QUIET will inevitably spark a wealth of conversation and introspection, not to mention change the way you look at cherry pie forever.
Tags: Beth de Araujo, Blumhouse, Cissy Ly, Dana Millican, Eleanore Pienta, Film Festivals, Melissa Paulo, Miles Ross, Olivia Luccardi, Soft & Quiet, Stefanie Estes, SXSW, SXSW 2022
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