Stars:
Josh Brolin, Rose Byrne, Toni Collette, Bruce Davison, James Franco, Marcia Gay
Harden, Mary Beth Hurt, Piper Laurie, Brittany Murphy, Giovanni Ribisi, Nick Searcy,
Mary Steenburgen and Kerry Washington
Directed
by: Karen Moncrieff
US release date: January 19th
UK release
date: TBA 2007 Plot:
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.
Official "The
Dead Girl" website: www.firstlookstudios.com/deadgirl/
Trailers
for "The Dead Girl" Trailer
at the official website Updates
for "The Dead Girl" Review:
The Dead Girl
Dec 20, 2006
Author: Paul Heath | 
