The Piano

“Silence affects everyone in the end.”

In the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) and her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) arrive for an arranged marriage to the settler Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). Jane Campion follows a mute Scottish woman caught between her controlling husband and the rugged frontiersman George Baines (Harvey Keitel), to whom she is drawn against her will. Ada keeps her gaze on the settlers, a silent woman at the edge of the frame.