The Dead Girl (2006): C-

Karen Moncrieff’s The Dead Girl offers up a series of stories about strangers whose lives are touched by the death of a young blonde named Krista (Brittany Murphy), from the reclusive mama’s-girl (Toni Collette) who finds the corpse out in the desert, to the twentysomething (Rose Byrne) who desperately longs for closure regarding her missing sister (whom she believes is Krista), to the mother (Marcia Gay Harden) who learns about her daughter’s life as a streetwalker and single mother from Krista’s prostitute friend (Kerry Washington). All self-contained vignettes, the various tales amount to little on their own and fail to resonate outside of their narrow narrative confines, Moncrieff’s strategy of generating mystery by revealing bits and pieces of the titular victim’s identity quickly undone by the clumsiness of most of her scenarios. Aside from Byrne, whose character’s torment – caused by her mother’s (Mary Steenburgen) consuming, obstinate obsession with finding her MIA sibling – exudes a wrenching realism, there’s little but tawdry histrionics on display, most notably from Piper Laurie as Collette’s Carrie-esque mother from hell and Mary Beth Hurt as the braying, neglected wife of a potential serial killer. Topping them all, however, is Murphy herself, who shows up late in the game looking like something the cat dragged in (replete with lots of dark, messy eyeliner), an appearance perfectly in keeping with a garish performance that climaxes – in a scene that hilariously makes clear Krista’s wayward confusion – with her frantically licking the envelope for her daughter’s birthday card like she’s servicing one of her clients.