Stephanie Daley

I have no idea why this film, or many of the other Sundance films for that matter, are rated so low on IMDb. It's a shame, because this is a remarkable film.

Amber Tamblyn gives the best performance of her career and deserves an Oscar for her subtle, eerie picture of teenage confusion, fear and malice. Tilda Swinton is also very good as the detective investigating Daley's case, and both Melissa Leo and Timothy Hutton give solid backup.

See this movie - it is a frightening and eye-opening portrait of real life. ****/*****

I am not the type of guy that watches often movies about abortion or sexual issues but when I watch them from time to time, it's for the actors. So keep this in mind as you read my review for this.

When the movie begins Stephanie Daley (Amber Tamblyn) is attending a school-organized field trip and suddenly she falls on the ground bleeding. After the recovery the medics discover that she was pregnant and find the baby dead with toilet paper stuffed in his mouth. So Stephanie is accused of child murder but instead of jail time the police give psychologist Lydie Crane (Tilda Swinton) the task of finding out why Stephanie did that act while at the same time deals with her husband Paul (Timothy Hutton) who seems to have lost interest in her.

I liked the acting, especially the performances by Swinton and Hutton. But the main problem for me is that it wasn't exactly subtle and considering this is a movie about abortion, the more the subject was handled better the better would have been because some scenes of Stephanie having healt issues or burst into tears with sad music in the background were jarring to watch. As it is, it's ok but nothing more.

I do have somewhat of a problem with the time device used in the film, the frame narrative that I'm not quite sure works to such extent. I think by just allowing the narrative to go through without resorting to "going back in time" would've made for a much more effective ride. As it is, the film is rather good. Amber Tamblyn and the goddess Tilda Swinton give some strong work here, and both give their characters their much required pathos for which to fully function within the film's structure better. Both are great performances that deserved a lot more attention, but alas, it's good that I sought it out. I definitely recommend this flawed, but strong piece of work.

This is an American independent film starring Tilda Swinton, of which she was also an Executive Producer. The film is largely shot in natural light with very good and versatile hand-held cinematography, but the disadvantage of that is that many scenes are so badly lit that they are far too dark. And sometimes the cast do not articulate sufficiently for everything they say to be understood; this is of course in complete contrast to the perfect articulation of the highly-trained Tilda Swinton herself, who plays a forensic psychologist conducting a pre-trial examination of a girl being tried for murdering her illegitimate baby at birth. Swinton is very good, as she always is. The girl being interviewed is pregnant and so is Swinton, and Swinton has her own deep issues and also her own secret. So there is an ingenious parallelism going on here. Both of them are struggling with a pregnancy, one of 26 weeks and the other of 29 weeks, and both have really big issues and are guilty of concealment. The film is directed by a woman, Hilary Brougher, and is sensitively approached by females for females, thus avoiding any contamination by male prurience. In fact, many men would not be interested in seeing this film, so far is it from their 'world', and thus so entirely incomprehensible to the more macho types. The world of pregnancy is pretty much a closed female world rarely entered into by men, except for those husbands who like to share the experience with their wives. Amber Tamlyn plays the young girl with convincing intensity, and was aged 19 but looking much younger. This is a powerful film.

It is strange how people can have a gigantic Hollywood budget, the whole powerful studio support system and churn clunker after clunker. Then someone like the director of this small independent flick, with a minuscule amount of money makes a compelling piece of art. Small town in unidentified part of America, could have been anywhere, with gloomy colorless landscape. Boring, predictable lives, unfulfilled promises, church on Sundays, unspoken words hanging in the air. Makes you want to run for your life.But where can you run? " Stephanie Daley" is an unflinching, sometimes hard to watch movie. Takes us to places we don't want to go, makes us remember things we'd like to forget. I am not sure Hollywood has a place for Hilary Brougher. People who have something to say can be nuisance. They can force us to think, and we can't have that,can we.