Product: The Dead Girl (2006)
Rating: 4.0
The Spreading Stain
There are no rays of sunshine in "The Dead Girl". There isn't one character who isn't tragically flawed; instead, the film presents an unbroken chain of murky, polluted existences. Few of the characters even exhibit a potential for improving themselves or their lives. The movie is almost beyond depressing, because it's all too real.Within this web of misery, there are some strong acting performances. Old pros Piper Laurie and Mary Beth Hurt portray grasping, whiny matriarchs. Toni Colette shines as a trampled flower of a character, a shy woman who hides a masochistic streak. And Brittany Murphy--yes, the much-maligned Brittany Murphy--is extremely good as the hard-living murder victim (seen in retrospect).Director Karen Moncrieff purposely dispenses with all the cliches that allow viewers to vicariously enjoy "serial killer" flicks. There are no super-monsters like Hannibal Lecter, pursued by heroic FBI profilers. Instead we get a pool of unrelenting squalor, and the characters who swim through it, trying to stay afloat.In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human, all too human." Those looking for virtue need go elsewhere.