Subtitled ‘Three Conversations’, Making Noise Quietly is a triptych of separate stories that never really escapes the origins of its source material. Adapted from Robert Holman’s 1986 stage play, debutante director Dominic Dromgoole draws mostly good performances from a little-known cast, but never finds a way to dynamize or elevate a series of talky scenes into something cinematic.
It’s essentially three meetings set over 60 years all touched by a backdrop of conflict. The first, ‘Being Friends’, centres on conscientious objector Oliver (Thompson) and precocious artist Eric (Tennyson) who share a picnic in World War II Kent as doodlebugs drop around them. It’s a gentle affair, marked by two characters who have a genuine interest in each other’s lives, a story about the difference between what is said and what is meant. The second yarn, ‘Lost’, charts an awkward conversation between a working class mother (Marten) and a naval officer (Streatfeild) charged with the terrible task of telling her about the death of her son in the Falklands War. The conversation quickly gets flipped on its head.
![Making Noise Quietly](https://images.bauerhosting.com/legacy/media/5d31/c87c/6933/030c/0fd4/6e8b/making-noise-quietly-2.jpg?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
The last story, ‘Making Noise Quietly’, follows ex-soldier step-father Alan (Gravelle) and autistic son Sam (O’Brien) — the latter refuses to speak — walking in the Black Forest in 1996, running into a concentration camp survivor who helps calm Sam but sparks conflict with Alan. The sun-dappled forest makes this the most visually interesting of the three stories but it’s also the most intense and dramatically stacked, with Findlay doing particularly good work as a woman trying to break a nexus of anger and abuse.
There is a bizarre linking device between stories — a man playing a piano in an empty barn — but the film gets a greater sense of unity through Stephen Warbeck’s classical score. Yet for all its collection of small moments and shifting dynamics, it ultimately doesn’t quite satisfy, the over-abundance of talk and lack of directorial energy rendering it a well intentioned but inert experience.