MOVIE REVIEW: 'Stephanie Daley'


From the July 20 Oregonian ....



"Stephanie Daley" takes a sensational subject and fogs it up beautifully.

The film begins as 16-year-old Stephanie (Amber Tamblyn) is arrested after giving birth in a ski-lodge bathroom, then dumping the premature baby in the trash, its mouth stuffed with toilet paper.

The teen says her baby was stillborn. The media calls her "The Ski Mom." The state is pressing charges. But as Stephanie tells her story to a pregnant forensic psychologist (Tilda Swinton) with her own childbirth issues, writer-director Hilary Brougher complicates matters with a sort of compassionate brutality.

Tamblyn (TV's "Joan of Arcadia") gives a career performance here, as multiple flashbacks reveal the awkwardness and denial that got Stephanie into this mess. Brougher relentlessly trains her digital camera on the human face at its most vulnerable. She fills the movie with honest reactions to tabloid problems. And she draws complicated parallels between Stephanie and the psychologist while leaving several key questions unanswered.

The film argues those questions may be unanswerable, and "Stephanie Daley" isn't conventionally satisfying. It is provocative, smartly made and truly independent.
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B; 92 minutes; rated R for disturbing material involving teen pregnancy, sexual content and language; now showing at Portland's Living Room Theaters.

'Stephanie Daley' (The Oregonian, July 20, 2007)

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Posted: Fri - July 20, 2007 at 03:19 PM        

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