The Dead Girl

As heavy and somber as its title, Karen Moncrieff's film is made up of five short stories connected by a murder and discovery of a corpse, but the title echoes with more than that physical death. Miserable Toni Collette is suffocating under the bitter abuse of a controlling parent (Piper Laurie, resurrecting her mad mother from "Carrie" as a harping old woman), university student Rose Byrne is emotionally imprisoned by a mother (Mary Steenburgen) who can't let go of the past, Kerry Washington is a battered hooker trapped in a dead-end existence, and so on. A little hope peeks out from the clouds, but it's a bleak outlook. Moncrieff has assembled an excellent cast to suppress their personalities under a knot of anxiety, like whipped animals terrified to open up, deadened to the possibilities of their lives -- except, oddly enough, for Brittany Murphy, who bounces around with emotions unchecked as the soon-to-be title character in the final episode. Also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Beth Hurt, Giovanni Ribisi and James Franco. Features director's commentary and cast interviews.