`DEAD GIRL' ALIVE WITH HUMANITY.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

The Stranger finds the body, which prods her to finally try to escape her abusive mother. The Sister wants the body to be identified as her long-missing sibling so she can move on with her life. The Wife makes a shocking discovery about her neglectful husband. The Mother learns the depths of her daughter's drugged-out despair. The Dead Girl winds up ... well ... dead.

These five women get about 20 minutes' screen time each in Karen Moncrieff's ``The Dead Girl,'' a detailed study of female suffering.

Moncrieff's second film, following 2002's ``Blue Car,'' nails its overall aesthetic with a precision and honesty that's disquieting, dispiriting and, most importantly, intriguing. She leaves you wanting more.

Clearly drawn to the margins of life, Moncrieff sees the world as a dangerous place, oppressive to women, with violence lurking around every corner. As a storyteller, she's first-rate. But she's also someone who shouldn't be watching the evening news because her skewered view of the world filters out all but the tiniest rays of hope.

Suffocating doesn't begin to describe it.

Five story lines

``The Dead Girl'' is divided into five mini-films, each connected to the body of a young woman found nude and mutilated in a field. The characters within each story never meet, but the movie's sections build upon each other, providing new information, until we finally meet the unfortunate title character at the very end.

The stories range from the strange (Toni Collette's Stranger gets into a weird relationship with a man who knows a little too much about serial killers) to the conventional. (Rose Byrne's Sister segment feels a bit movie-of-the-week, but Byrne elevates it above that.)

Redefines creepy

The best is ``The Wife,'' which has Mary Beth Hurt's resentful, fearful trailer park resident learning what her husband is up to during his frequent, extended absences. How she acts upon this knowledge will raise the hair on the back of your neck.

It's an impossible act to follow, but Marcia Gay Harden and Kerry Washington prove up to the task in ``The Mother,'' a beautifully acted story where one woman remains trapped and another seems too ready to move forward.

By the time Brittany Murphy bursts on the scene as the doomed Krista, she feels like a force of nature because her predecessors were all stunted in one way or another. Moncrieff doesn't cut the character any slack, but there's an attempt to understand what goes into that kind of life and, yes, lament its passing.

That balance gives ``The Dead Girl'' a resonance that sticks to your soul long after the movie's closing credits roll. Moncrieff may be a glass-half-empty kind of person (more like a quarter-empty, actually), but her questioning prods us to look at people and see a common humanity. No small feat that.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

[e-mail]

THE DEAD GIRL - Three stars

(R: language, grisly images, nudity/sexuality)

Starring: Toni Collette, Rose Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Beth Hurt, Brittany Murphy.

Director: Karen Moncrieff.

Running time: 1 hr. 33 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.

In a nutshell: Disquieting examination of female suffering that asks you to look at people and see a common humanity. Nicely crafted, expertly acted, often unforgettable.

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Photo:

Rose Byrne is the title character's sister in one of the five mini-films that make up ``The Dead Girl.''