I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

In addition to the excellent acting and haunting stories, this is one of those rare films that doesn't settle for stereotypes in portraying the desperation and hopelessness so often experienced in the lives of real working class and poor Americans. Aided by realistic sets and wardrobes, the characters were so richly defined, developed and portrayed that I felt they could have been my own neighbors, family and friends.Witnessing and empathizing with the pain of so many psychologically damaged characters was more difficult for this viewer than watching repeated scenes of the decaying dead girl's body. Virtually everyone in this film was suffering and inflicting emotional pain on others. It is unlikely that any of these troubled and traumatized characters would ever find inner peace or happiness in the future, because they have limited insight into their own motivations, thoughts and behavior. They often make poor and irrational choices, but they still deserve our compassion. Each characters' suffering has deep roots and their suffering will likely last until they die. Sometimes viewing the film felt like watching a human train wreck with the characters thrashing blindly through life, barely conscious of who they were, why they behaved as they did, or how to get what they truly wanted for themselves.Amazing and very rewarding film! I caution people who are experiencing clinical depression not to watch it until they are feeling better, because this film definitely has multiple triggers to pull someone even deeper into that black hole.

The story of "The Dead Girl" is broken into five chapters - each focusing on a female character connected in some way to a corpse dumped beside a highway. The first deals with a socially inept young woman, who happens upon the body of a murdered girl during an early morning walk. Somehow the self esteem she gains from the discovery gives her the strength to escape from a constrained life. The second segment concentrates on a female pathologist whose older sister had mysteriously disappeared some years earlier. During her examination of the victim in the morgue, she becomes convinced the corpse is that of her missing sister. The third narrative fragment relates how a neglected wife handles the unexplained absences of a sinister husband. The main character in the fourth episode is the dead woman's mother, who arrives to identify the body, meets her daughter's room-mate - and in the midst of grief has an unexpectedly hopeful encounter. The last chapter tells the story of the murdered girl's last day, and how she came to meet her killer.Needless to say the film is no comedy. The excellent direction, strong characters and sensitive performances combine to lift it above the bleakness of its subject matter, and each of the episodes is intense and contains surprises. If one were being picky, one might argue that the placement of the victim's meeting with her murderer at the end of the film brings it to an unnecessarily downbeat conclusion - but either way, the story has a powerful emotional resonance.

No mere directorial debut from Karen Moncrieff, as I watched again it came to me all the stars who wanted to have roles in this production Brittany Murphy, Marcia Gay harden, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Kerry Washington, Piper Laurie Rose Byrne and Toni Collette (Australians) the usually excellent Giovanni Ribisi and solid Mary Steenburgen, Bruce Davison quite a cast... it shows how a serial killer can get away with it for so long, the devastating effects on the families of his victims, the sadness, the loss... an important movie I think... Britanny's daughter the little girl in the backseat as she goes to a new life with her Grannie is something else...the scene brings tears to the eyes

Five different women, all connect by the discovery of a dead girl.Toni Collette finds the body, and experiences some measure of notoriety. At least she isn't getting yelled out by her mother (Piper Laurie), who depends upon her for constant care. She finds the strength to leave.Rose Byrne is a forensics student who is prepping the body. her sister disappeared 15 years ago, and she is had all she can take of her parents search for her, especially her mother ((Mary Steenburgen).Mary Beth Hurt is the wife of a husband that disappears frequently. She discovers evidence in a storage locker that implicates him as a serial killer. She tries to do the right thing, but is not strong enough.Marcia Gay Harden is the mother, who tries to do the right thing when she discovers that she has a granddaughter. Will she repeat her mistakes and marry another child molester? Finally, there is the victim, Brittany Murphy, who doesn't really endear herself to us so that we can feel sorry for her. She lives a life that puts her in the path of scum, like serial killers.It was a fascinating story that showed several angles of one death. There were some fantastic performances (Mary Beth Hurt), and some good ones.