THE DEAD GIRL                                                                                                 

Five Uneasy Pieces: Dead Girls Don't Cry, Either
 

PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "The Dead Girl"

By Omar P.L. Moore/February 9, 2007




                                                   
The Strength, Sadness and Power of Woman in a Pentagonal Picture: "The Stranger" (Toni Collette); "The Sister" (Rose Byrne); "The Wife" (Mary Beth Hurt); "The Mother" (Marcia Gay Harden background, with an unrecognizable Kerry Washington, foreground); and "The Dead Girl" (Brittany Murphy), in Karen Moncrieff's film. 
(All photos in this review by Ron Batzdorff/First Look Pictures)


Opening today, "The Dead Girl" provides moviegoers absorbing and occasionally unsettling glimpses into the lives that have been disrupted by one man's act of murderous violence.  Karen Moncrieff directs this film with a smooth precision that leaves an indelible imprint on the viewer at its conclusion.  Five stories ("The Stranger", "The Sister", "The Wife", "The Mother", "The Dead Girl") are the shards of celluloid that form Moncrieff's 93-minute film, and the face of Brittany Murphy's character Krista (in death and in life) bookend the first and last of these chapters of mystery and suspense.
 

Four of the five stories consist mainly of a specific interaction or relationship (marital, sexual or otherwise) between a man and a woman.  We are never completely sure who Krista's killer is and in each story it conceivably could be the man or woman that is featured.  Most likely Ms. Moncrieff did not intend for the identity of Krista's killer to be the key or equation to her film, which is effective in several areas, including when the audience doesn't know who the perpetrator is.  So perhaps "The Dead Girl" outdoes (or undoes) itself at the end when the possible killer is revealed, even though a clue or two has been dropped before the film is two-thirds un-spooled.

Until this point, there are dalliances in the sadomasochistic and the lurid (Toni Collette as Arden, a daughter assaulted by her abusive Kathy Bates "Misery"-like mother -- terrifically played by Piper Laurie -- that she cares for, and a creepy supermarket groceries bagger obsessed with serial killers); the depressed and in denial (Rose Byrne and Mary Steenburgen); the sheltered and the persistent (Nick Searcy and Mary Beth Hurt); the wounded and the grieving (Kerry Washington and Marcia Gay Harden), the brash and the brave (Josh Brolin and Brittany Murphy.)

 

Something that unites these five stories and is refreshing to witness, is the way these women independently assert themselves, not just vis-a-vis the flawed men with whom they interact but with the world.  They are resolute and unafraid to travel to the places society has told them they are forbidden to enter.  On another note they appear firmly in control of their sexuality, even when it looks as if they are being put in subordinate or compromising positions by the opposite sex. 

One stunning moment in "The Dead Girl" occurs when one woman sheds her clothes and tosses them into a burning dumpster container.  This isn't an expression of sexual freedom or necessarily a political act; it is more a metaphoric statement and combination of this character's defiance of conventions regarding male expectations of a woman's behavior, the resignation of involvement in a relationship of complicity and guilt, as well as the notion that something in the particular woman in question has died, or that this woman stripped bare may as well have been a victim along with the actual deceased.
 

   
The Men: Suspects or Saints?  Giovanni Ribisi, excellently creepy as Rudy, James Franco as Derek, and Josh Brolin as Tarlow, in "The Dead Girl".

Another way that "The Dead Girl" works is in its approach as commentary on women as objects in a sexist society.  Moncrieff looks at but does not glorify this reality.  The man's world that the women of "The Dead Girl" inhabit objectifies women in death and in life, and it seems that with the exception of "The Mother" chapter, each of the characters (men and women alike) in the stories somewhat gloss over the death of Krista as if it is a taboo or as if she is not worthy of discussion because she presumably does not count.  Significantly this may be more a function of class than sex; (lest naivety creep in here: as if class should matter in the grand scheme of such things.)
 

Be that as it may, Krista is revealed as a prostitute, bisexual, and single-mother (not in that order) -- and in the real-life media glare she would likely get the same media coverage that seven murdered prostitutes in Ipswich, England received last December -- relatively scant -- as opposed to if she were a woman of higher education, credentials and wealthier background like Chandra Levy or Natalee Holloway (whose disappearance and/or murder is yet unsolved, and on whom media stories ran for well over two years on one or two prominent -- some would argue infamous -- American cable television news channels -- even as more compelling and pertinent news was being put on the back burner by news editors.)

 

[Perhaps appropriately in the film, there is no apparent media coverage of Krista's plight (except for one brief scene in the film's opening chapter.)] 

 

As Krista, Brittany Murphy gives a raw, gritty performance that recalls Hilary Swank as the doomed real-life Brandon Teena in her first Oscar ("Boys Don't Cry").  Murphy is 180 degrees from her performance in "Just Married", the January 2002 comedy made with her then husband-to-be Ashton Kutcher (how time flies.)  Marcia Gay Harden is a dead ringer for Sally Field (in the film "Not Without My Daughter") during one scene in the chapter titled "The Mother", while there is something both vulnerable and authentic in the complexity of Toni Collette's performance as a woman who herself may or may not have been sexually abused (in "The Stranger".)  The camera soaks up Collette's neutralized, detached features, including her high cheekbones.  Her stunning plainness and mysterious, entrancing face are her most powerful assets.  It is her face (and obvious sterling acting skill) whether made-up or not that has sparked mysterious, sensual or downright dangerous characters in such films as this one, and in other films like "The Sixth Sense" (Oscar-nominee), "Japanese Woman", "The Hours", "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Night Listener". 

 
Some of the actors are unrecognizable, which makes us forget that they are familiar faces.  Giovanni Ribisi, Rose Byrne and especially Kerry Washington look nothing like the usual big screen personas with which we are familiar.  Ms. Washington plays a hardened, abused prostitute whose heart still retains a small reservoir of tenderness and empathy in scenes with Krista's mother (Harden), who is trying to pick up the pieces that lead her to Krista's untimely exit from this world.  Ribisi displays a creepiness and odd detachment that makes his Rudy character pulsing with mystery and possible menace.  Well played.  All the performances in Moncrieff's film are stellar, notably Mary Beth Hurt's as a woman who knows her husband through and through.
 

 

At least two of the five episodes are shot in a predominant darkness, lending an air of mystery, danger and uncertainty to them, which for atmosphere's sake makes for good drama.  The five scenes could be shot out of chronological sequence, and maybe it would have worked even better than it already does.  Still, while this film is as fresh and as original in some instances as a film "Memento" (2001) was, one can be forgiven for thinking that "The Silence Of The Lambs" (1991) screams loudly in the background of this well-directed and edited film.  Each of the stories could be feature-length films in their own right, and Moncrieff develops promising narratives for most of them.  Some stories' shards cut deeper than others, but in total "The Dead Girl" works much more often than it does not.


"The Dead Girl" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for language, grisly images and sexuality/nudity.  As previously stated, the duration of the film is one hour and 33 minutes.  The film opened in New York and Los Angeles on December 29, 2006, and previously expanded to other American cities just last month, on January 12 and January 19.  It opens in San Francisco and surrounding Northern California Bay Area cities today.  The film also stars Bruce Davidson and Mary Steenburgen.


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