Creepy, creepy, creepy -- and not in a good way. "The Quiet" stars Elisha Cuthbert ("The Girl Next Door") and Camilla Belle ("When a Stranger Calls") as a sexy high school cheerleader and her foster sister, respectively. (See Film Notes on Page 32.) Belle, who plays the deaf and mute Dot, is at first shunned by Nina (Cuthbert) and her classmates, then takes on the role of confessor and confidante, eventually uncovering some disturbing truths about her foster parents (Martin Donovan and Edie Falco).

"The Quiet" is supposed to be a moody meditation on suburban hypocrisy ( there's a new concept) and sexual power, but director Jamie Babbit films it so darkly as to be almost illegible. Cuthbert displays a brittle, all-too-believable seductiveness as a sexually confused teenager; Belle, hemmed in by a nearly silent role, reverts to glaring under a fringe of black bangs. Rather than an indictment of depravity, the movie quickly becomes a particularly cynical example of it. You've seen most of this before, and in better movies; to call "The Quiet" a poor man's "Heavenly Creatures," "American Beauty" or "Donnie Darko" is to libel impoverished men.

-- Ann Hornaday (Sep. 1, 2006)

Contains strong and disturbing sexual content, a scene of violence, profanity, drug content and brief nudity.