The Dead Girl

The body of a young woman is found in a field. The film is in five parts and each belongs to someone else: the woman who finds the body, the forensic student who performs the autopsy, a mother who has been looking for her missing daughter for years, the killer's wife, and finally the dead girl herself. Karen Moncrieff does not build it as a crime picture; who killed her is established but that is not the centre. The subject is that all the women around one death are lost inside their own lives too. Toni Collette, Rose Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Beth Hurt and Brittany Murphy star. The parts do not connect, and that choice makes the film harder. It won the screenplay award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Who it is for: viewers who like portmanteau storytelling and character-driven drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting resolution.