There were many opportunities to do Ms. Dickinson’s life justice and all of them were missed by Davies. The close relationships the real life Dickinson maintained largely through correspondence with her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert and the clergyman Charles Wadsworth were glossed over in such a way as to render Nixon’s portrayal of heartbreak and angst over their departures entirely unwarranted. The result was the perception of what was intended to be a deeply feeling and passionate woman reduced to an unsympathetic character who is prone to unnecessary displays of histrionics. We, the audience, were never given a chance to care for these people who shared only a scene or two with Nixon, so we cannot grieve their loss with our protagonist. We can only sit in embarrassment as we witness a grief we do not understand, further alienating us from the intended emotional impact of the story.

If one thing was done well, it was how thoroughly the utter sense of hopeless desolation permeated the atmosphere of the entire picture. Every character, from Dickinson's overbearing father (Keith Carradine), to her depressed mother (Joanna Bacon), to her outwardly dutiful siblings (Duncan Duff and Jennifer Ehle show signs of the deepest unhappiness caused by their unspoken and unfulfilled desires. The long, slow shots of the Dickinson family in their home brought the absence of music in to sharp relief, causing their home to feel more like a tomb filled with the living dead. The oppressive life these characters led culminated at times in to verbal spats among themselves, but otherwise remained tightly under wraps, their eyes showing the desperate panic of those being buried alive by their own duty to conformity. For those not so willing to conform, those like Emily, the violence of the silence brought an unhappy end to an unhappy life and a desk full of hand-sewn books of poetry that would not break their silence until death had allowed the tormented soul of their author to fly free at last.