The Dead Girl

The Dead Girl (2006)

Written and Directed by: Karen Moncrieff
Starring: Toni Collette, Rose Byrne, Mary Beth Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Brittany Murphy, Giovanni Ribisi, James Franco, Nick Searcy, Kerry Washington, Josh Brolin, Piper Laurie, Mary Steenburgen, Bruce Davison

I knew virtually nothing about this movie when I watched it. I thought it was called Living Dead Girl. I guess that's a song? But just imagine my confusion.

Anyway, it's five stories revolving around a dead prostitute (not intersecting-drama style, though, which is actually really refreshing. It could have gone that way really easily). "The Stranger" is about the woman who finds the dead girl. "The Sister" is about a woman whose sister went missing fifteen years ago. When the dead girl turns up at the morgue, she believe it may be her sister. "The Wife" is about a woman who discovers that her husband has been murdering prostitutes. "The Mother" is about the dead girl's mother. "The Dead Girl" shows how the girl became dead.

A little on the morbid side, but that's okay. A few parts of the movie were kind of overdone, a little too heavy, but generally it was pretty well done, well written, well acted.

It was almost exclusively about women, which was cool, and the characters were actually interesting, as opposed to, like, Evening which was also about women but boring as fuck. Coincidentally (or not?), both pics have Toni Collette in them except she really sucked in Evening. I guess it's not a coincidence. If you're going to make a movie about women, you might as well cast Toni Collette. I mean, she's a good actor (except in Evening) and she's not, like, a sex bunny.

Well anyway. Apparently she's Australian. What is it with Aussies/Kiwis? They must have a really good film school there or something.

Ah, useless trivia. Giovanni Ribisi has a twin sister. She's married to Beck or something. I learned that when I was researching Scientology.

Piper Laurie was scary in Carrie.

Shit. Okay. I also liked the music in the movie. I can't remember it right now, but I remember liking it. Also, the scenery was kind of nice. It was shot in California and shows some of the parts of California I don't really think about that much.

Yep. Interesting movie. I'm way too off track to actually write any closing remarks that make sense, so I'll just stop now.

END