Tyrannical fathers and recalcitrant women are favourite archetypes in the work of Terence Davies. The former loomed large in his autobiographical Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and in his last film, Sunset Song (2015); the latter are the troubled heroines of The House of Mirth (2000) and his adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea (2011). The two types are at war with one another in his new film, A Quiet Passion, an odd, elusive biopic of Emily Dickinson (1830-86), one of America’s most original poets and, in this account, most determined solitaries.

Subject and film-maker appear well matched, both driven by a lyrical yearning and a cussed sensibility at odds with their time. Rebelling at her evangelical boarding school, the young Emily returns home to Amherst, Massachusetts and the bosom of a difficult family – a glowering beardy patriarch (Keith Carradine), a depressed mother, a priggish brother and beloved sister Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle).