"The Dead Girl," the new film from
acclaimed writer/director Karen Moncrieff ("Blue Car"), is a
quintet of stories about seemingly unrelated people whose
lives converge around the murder of a young woman.
"The Stranger" is about the woman (Toni Collette) who finds
the body. The publicity generated by the discovery creates
an opening for her to break away from her abusive mother's
(Piper Laurie) control and form an unlikely bond with the
mysterious Rudy (Giovanni Ribisi).
"The Sister," a forensics graduate student (Rose Byrne), is
torn between her mother's (Mary Steenburgen) pressure to
hold onto hope for her abducted sister's return and her
longing to move forward with her own life. When she examines
the dead girl, she is convinced that she has found the body
of her missing sister, finally releasing her from her
burden.
"The Wife" (Mary Beth Hurt) is trapped in an intense
hate/love relationship with her husband (Nick Searcy). A
terrible discovery about his connection to the dead girl's
murder forces her to confront what she though she knew about
him—and herself.
"The Mother" (Marcia Gay Harden) searches for answers about
her runaway daughter's life and is confronted with a series
of revelations that change the course of her own life. She
gets help in her quest from another troubled young woman—the
prostitute (Kerry Washington) who lived with her daughter.
"The Dead Girl" (Brittany Murphy) is a fireball: hyper,
volatile, self-destructive and subject to hair-trigger
bursts of uncontrollable rage. She also has an innocent and
child-like side. She dreams about improving her life and
becoming a good mother to her young daughter.
The characters in "The Dead Girl" are linked not only by
their connection to a brutal murder but also by the
difficult hand that life has dealt them. The film
scrutinizes their inner struggles to overcome or surrender
to their misfortunes. As in "Blue Car," Moncrieff creates
multidimensional portraits of women as they seesaw
emotionally through a tangle of conflicting desires and
fears.
Riveting and ultimately heartbreaking, "The Dead Girl"
confirms the promise of "Blue Car," and heralds the arrival
of Karen Moncrieff as a major American independent
filmmaker.
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