Synopsis
The clues to a young woman's death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated people begin to intersect.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Brittany MurphyKrista
- Toni ColletteArden
- Rose ByrneLeah
- Josh BrolinTarlow
- James FrancoDerek
- Bruce DavisonLeah's Father
- Marcia Gay HardenMelora
- Piper LaurieArden's Mother
- Giovanni RibisiRudy
- Mary SteenburgenBeverley, Leah's Mother
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
All behave in ways that may at first seem incomprehensible, but through Moncrieff's expert storytelling, each woman is finally rendered merely human. - 88
Premiere
Dark little indie thriller. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
By the movie's end, writer-director Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl delivers considerable emotional impact. But that doesn't mean you've enjoyed the journey. - 70
Variety
More ambitious than her 2002 debut, "Blue Car," Moncrieff's new film maintains her focus on women, expanding to include a range of ages, circumstances and psychologies. Picture's drama, however, is deliberately fractured into a quintet of stories that vary considerably in their overall impact. - 70
Salon
The universe of The Dead Girl is an almost uniformly dreary one, whose women are all either dowdy or whorish. - 70
Village Voice
Moncrieff's glum, somber film is something of a needed corrective at the moment, when horror movies are turning into weightless exercises in morally sanctioned sadism. - 63
New York Daily News
Darker than the shadow of death. - 60
Los Angeles Times
If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.
