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100With a calmness that bespeaks confidence, this small, spellbinding second feature by Hilary Brougher brings together two women, trapped in separate states of denial and distress, who manage to end each other's entrapment.
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91The scary culminating flashback, in which Stephanie gives birth -- in a public restroom, on a high school ski trip -- is a marvel of authentic disturbance.
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90Brougher has taken material that sounds contrived and potentially exploitative and used her gift for careful observation and restrained emotionality to give it surprising authenticity.
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88Some cases should never come to trial, because no verdict would be adequate. You are likely to be discussing this film long into the night.
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88Tamblyn's surprisingly measured performance commands attention.
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80There is so much to admire and empathize with in Stephanie Daley that it feels almost boorish to quibble about whether the film needs to come packaged as a murder mystery.
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80Without standing on a soapbox Stephanie Daley suggests a tragic gender gap between men who judge and women who feel.
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75A stark, painful drama about pregnancy--a subject rarely treated this fully, candidly or tragically.
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75This is first-rate stuff.
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75This is grim material, but director Hilary Brougher -- working from her own script that won a Sundance award -- examines the lives of these two suffering women without sensationalism or preaching.
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75However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.
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75The film itself is dark and chilling, if occasionally plodding, but worth seeing for the absorbing potency of its main performances.
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75It is provocative, smartly made and truly independent.
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75Braugher perhaps overvalues the parallels between Stephanie and Lydie. The scenario is too schematic and diminishes the power of each woman's story. She frames the drama as a cross between a whodunit and a whydunit, and neither strategy is entirely successful.
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70Despite an overly abrupt and oblique conclusion, this is a major American film, announcing the arrival of an independent director who deserves all the hype.
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70A taut, provocative, sometimes overreaching but always absorbing thriller.
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70Apart from Swinton's fine performance, what largely distinguishes this is Brougher's sharp narrative focus.
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60A muted psychological mystery where filmmaker Hilary Brougher's interest in "solving" a possible crime is superseded by her investigation into matters involving denial, free will and the physical and emotional burdens of pregnancy.
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Writer-director Hilary Brougher knows how to rub it in, but Tamblyn is fearless in her attempt to save the narrative from falling into clichéd sermonizing.
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50The movie amounts to an extended short story that progresses slowly and fades away with key questions unanswered. Ambiguity isn't necessarily interesting.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 7
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Mixed: 2 out of 7
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Negative: 1 out of 7
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MichaelL.4
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MarcK.8
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KenG4