“The Dead Girl,” the new film from acclaimed writer/director Karen Moncrieff (”Blue Car”), is a quintet of stories about seemingly unrelated people whose lives converge around the murder of a young woman.
“The Stranger” is about the woman (Toni Collette) who finds the body. The publicity generated by the discovery creates an opening for her to break away from her abusive mother’s (Piper Laurie) control and form an unlikely bond with the mysterious Rudy (Giovanni Ribisi).
“The Sister,” a forensics graduate student (Rose Byrne), is torn between her mother’s (Mary Steenburgen) pressure to hold onto hope for her abducted sister’s return and her longing to move forward with her own life. When she examines the dead girl, she is convinced that she has found the body of her missing sister, finally releasing her from her burden.