The Dead Girl (2006)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Arden	Toni Collette	½
Krista Kutcher	Brittany Murphy	½
Leah	Rose Byrne	½
Melora	Marcia Gay Harden
Ruth	Mary Beth Hurt	½
Rosetta	Kerry Washington	½
Rudy	Giovanni Ribisi
Tarlow	Josh Brolin
Arden's mother	Piper Laurie
Carl	Nick Searcy
Beverley, Leah's mother	Mary Steenburgen
Leah's father	Bruce Davison
Derek	James Franco

Review

Five seemingly diverging stories are more or less brought together through characters who are in one way or another affected by the death of the titular character in this semi-innovative feminist film by writer/director Karen Moncrieff. Not all the segments work equally well individually – some of them have a few strangely unhandled loose ends – but there is power in the story about Brittany Murphy's character, which concludes the film effectively. The late Murphy also gives arguably the best of the film's many brilliant performances, one of the most powerful of her career. Among other talented actresses doing great work are Toni Colette, Mary Beth Hurt and Kerry Washington in three of the film's other segments. It's a remarkable ensemble of character actors Moncrieff has been able to assemble here. Perhaps the feeling of unfulfillment which slightly mars the film could have been avoided had Moncrieff had more time, freedom or experience (or any applicable combination of the three) to bring her film to completion.