Review of The Dead Girl (2006) by Filipeneto — 19 Sep 2021

I was expecting something else when I decided to see this movie. Anyone who has the patience and kindness to read other reviews of mine will realize, perhaps, that I rarely read or try to know something about a film before watching it, so as not to spoil the first impression too much, and only when I write about it is it that I try to read something to better document myself and not write many nonsense, among the many that I am writing, to the horror of those who know more than I do. So I was surprised to see the style of film I found, which reminded me a little of some Tarantino films (the strong images, the raw violence, the subdivision into chapters, etc.). It was an interesting resource from director Karen Moncrieff, and it worked very well.

The script is, along with the powerful interpretations of the cast, the best thing about the film. Unpredictable until the end, it works very well, and the segmentation of the story into chapters means that certain information only arrives in portions until the end, with the last chapter being the one where the others will all fit together. Therefore, it is not easy to summarize the story: we have several women, who do not know each other, but whose lives will be affected by the same crime: the death of a young prostitute.

The actors are good, and we have some familiar names here. Toni Collette is the first to enter the scene, and she really is amazing in her character, an extremely unsocial young woman who lives under the control of an elderly and abusive mother, played by an equally great Piper Laurie. Giovanni Ribisi, another well-known name, was pleasantly somber. Rose Byrne, the protagonist of the second frame of the film, also doesn't let us down by the way she gives her character. In fact, she is perhaps the most controversial character in the film, as she is a young woman who has lived all her life in the shadow of an absent sister, who has disappeared and is anxiously sought after by her family. She is eager to be freed from this page of her life, even if it is necessary to give her sister for dead. This eagerness puts her on a collision course with her mother, played by Mary Steenburgen, who, like any mother, refuses to accept this hypothesis. Much less remarkable or interesting is the contribution of Mary Beth Hurt. I thought the actress was too aged, I would have liked to see her more youthful, I think the character could handle it well. Marcia Gay Harden gives us the touching portrait of the dead girl's mother, emotional and devastated by the loss, but she doesn't go beyond that register. Brittany Murphy also shined in giving her character a dose of irreverence and ill-mannered rebellion, tempered by an evident maternal love. For me, it's only Kerry Washington who looked bad in this film, not because of the actress's work, which is impeccable, but because of the rude and unjustifiably disgusted way in which the character behaves with everything and everyone.

On a technical level, the film doesn't stand out. It has regular cinematography, good color and light. Also, the sets or costumes are not worthy of relevant mention, they only fulfill their role. The film's soundtrack is virtually non-existent, but what little there is works well. What I would really highlight on the positive side here is the post-production work, the harmony with which the various parts of the film come together, giving the film a pleasant rhythm, without losses or delays, without becoming heavy.