The Dead Girl : Five stories, many lives, affected by one girl's death.

A unique film that shows how one person's death can have far-reaching effects, and not just to the immediate family of the victim.

I'm referring to The Dead Girl, a unique movie by writer/director Karen Moncrieff. What makes it unique? It's separated into five discrete chapters. Each chapter has its own cast, and its own "feel". For the most part, the five stories do not intersect, except that they somehow revolve around a dead girl whose body is discovered in the opening scene. And they all show a woman in trouble.

Chapter 1: The Stranger

Arden (Toni Collete) finds the body, and her life is changed forever, by the sudden celebrity of being "the one who found her". With the help of her boyfriend (Giovanni Ribisi), Arden finds the strength to get out from the thumb of her overbearing and abusive mother (Piper Laurie).

Chapter 2: The Sister

Leah (Rose Byrne) and her family have been suffering for the past 15 years, ever since Leah's sister disappeared. Now Leah is a medical examiner, working on the body found in Chapter 1. Markings on the body lead Leah to believe the dead girl is her long-lost sister, a conclusion that Leah's family is unwilling to accept, even as Leah sees it as a chance for long overdue closure.

Chapter 3: The Wife

Mary Beth Hurt plays Ruth, a woman in a loveless, trustless marriage. One day she discovers a morbid secret in her husband's storage container. Faced with a choice, Ruth's actions will have an impact not only on the family of the one body already found, but on many other families as well.

Chapter 4: The Mother

By now, the body has been identified. She's Krista, a prostitute who ran away from an abusive step-father several years ago. Marcia Gay Harden is her mother, desperate to understand the past few years of Krista's life.

Chapter 5: The Dead Girl

Here we go backwards, to the final day in Krista's life. We see a young girl (Brittany Murphy) who works as a prostitute, but still has a heart of gold, especially when it comes to her three year old daughter.


I enjoyed this movie very much. I found the non-linear technique a pleasant departure from the "same old same old" story. And I liked that each story was unique, with a different cast and a different feel. Although not the case, it would not have surprised me to find that each chapter had a different director.

The performances were incredible. Most notably, Marcia Gay Harden, whose pain at the discovery of her long-lost daughter's death was incredible to watch. It broke my heart to watch, as she learned why her daughter ran away all those years ago, and what steps her daughter took, in order to survive on her own. She also manages to look beyond the hard outside of Krista's roommate Rosetta (Kerry Washington) and learns to care for her, simply because she cared for Krista.

The other performance worth mentioning is Mary Beth Hurt, as a woman in a sad marriage, who makes a decision that will affect her life, her husband's life, and countless other lives. With barely a word spoken, we see every emotion run through her mind, as she makes her final choice.

And, finally, Brittany Murphy was perfect as the troubled Krista. It doesn't matter that she's a runaway. It doesn't matter that she's a prostitute. What I'll remember most about her character is her love for her child, and what she put herself through, in order to be there for her daughter.

The weakest of the chapters, by far, is the first. It's slow, dull, and a bit disjointed. And that's a real shame. Sadly, I suspect many viewers will watch that first act, and give up on the rest of the movie. I encourage viewers to stick with it - the rest of the chapters are far more interesting, and definitely worth watching.