The Dead Girl

The Dead Girl is a crime drama built around the discovery of a young woman's body and the effect her death has on a group of women whose lives are only distantly connected. Arden, a shy woman caring for a demanding mother, is the one who finds Krista's remains. A medical examiner fears the body may belong to the sister who disappeared from her life years earlier. A wife begins to suspect her husband may be responsible for the killing. Krista's mother searches for answers about her daughter's troubled life, and Krista herself is seen in the time before her death. The story unfolds across five linked sections, moving from the end toward the beginning.

Karen Moncrieff directed and wrote the film, which was released in 2006 and runs 94 minutes. It was her second feature as director, coming before The Trials of Cate McCall, Petals on the Wind, The Keeping Hours and Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story. The cast includes Brittany Murphy as Krista, Rose Byrne, Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Beth Hurt and Piper Laurie, with 35 credited performers in all. Critics rated it 6.8 out of 10 across 80 reviews, while it holds 6.5 on IMDb from around 17,000 votes and 6 on TMDB from 263 votes, so audiences and critics are fairly close in their assessment.