Beyond the Multiplex

Hilary Brougher's "Stephanie Daley" is a major American film, in spite of its indie pedigree. Plus: Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson visit the snuff motel.

By Andrew O'Hehir

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Photo: Regent Releasing

Timothy Hutton and Tilda Swinton in "Stephanie Daley."

April 19, 2007 | In my more cynical moments locked in the Dark Tower here at Beyond the Multiplex world HQ, I conclude that the interlocking machineries of independent cinema -- the Sundance Institute, the Spirit Awards, the worldwide parade of film festivals, the armies of middle-size, small and teeny-tiny distributors, and the entire career of Tilda Swinton -- have become a factory for churning out intimate, earnest relationship films that nobody really likes. OK, that's not cynicism. It's just the truth.

But then something comes along with exactly that institutional-indie pedigree -- something like writer-director Hilary Brougher's second feature, "Stephanie Daley" -- that's strong enough to make the whole enterprise seem worth it. "Stephanie Daley" was developed at the Sundance Writers' and Filmmakers' Lab, and premiered at that festival last year. It was nominated for a couple of Spirit Awards, while still unreleased, and it's been kicking around in distribution limbo for 15 months, on its way toward what will no doubt be a very modest release. Its cast is one of those disparate assemblages of film, TV and theater actors, none of them exactly a star: Amber Tamblyn, Timothy Hutton, Denis O'Hare, Melissa Leo and, yes, Tilda Swinton. (She's also an executive producer, which is just about as much of an indie imprimatur as you can get.)

So is "Stephanie Daley" a drama about a worried-looking group of family members trying to muddle through their lives? Well, yeah. But they're worried for a damn good reason. The title character, a high-school junior played by Tamblyn, may have killed her baby. Stephanie has become locally infamous as the "ski mom": She gave birth in a bathroom during a school ski trip (the location is Hunter Mountain, in central New York state), and the infant -- potentially viable after 26 weeks in the womb, if only just -- was later found dead in a garbage can, wrapped in toilet paper.

Sure, this is a torn-from-the-tabloids plot that would also serve for an episode of "CSI" or "Law & Order," and undoubtedly has. I don't think that's such a bad thing; too many independent films seem pathologically allergic to melodrama, as if the greatest works of the Western tradition didn't involve war, murder, sexual betrayal and unlikely coincidence. Furthermore, Stephanie's guilt or innocence is not Brougher's real subject, and we don't come away from "Stephanie Daley" with some objective truth about Stephanie and what she did or didn't know and do. Brougher writes near-perfect dialogue, and possesses that rare ability to create believable teenage characters who are neither overgrown children nor mini-adults. She's interested in the ambiguous shades of meaning between characters, the emotional and psychological chemistry that makes human relationships so magical and so poisonous.

To raise the stakes even higher, Lydie Crane (Swinton), the psychologist assigned to interview Stephanie and recommend whether or not she should be prosecuted, is herself 29 weeks pregnant, and gave birth to a stillborn child just a year earlier. Sure, that's far-fetched, but Brougher and Swinton sell it effortlessly. This is a small town without an abundance of shrinks, and Lydie is the kind of obsessive workaholic who thinks she can keep her work and life separated; she calmly takes cellphone calls while squatting to pee on the roadside behind her Grand Cherokee. (Brougher is herself the mother of two children, and I'm not convinced that a man or a childless woman could have written this script.)

You probably know Tamblyn from her television roles in "Joan of Arcadia" and numerous other shows, but she's something of a revelation here. Stephanie is a sympathetic but largely opaque girl, her need and diffidence tightly wrapped around a center of sadness even in flashback scenes, before she becomes a high-school pariah. She longs for affection that her parents (Melissa Leo and Jim Gaffigan), traumatized and socially isolated, can't or won't provide. Meanwhile, Lydie's husband, Paul (Timothy Hutton), is coming home later and later, smelling of Scotch; she finds an unfamiliar earring in the bathroom. Her own relationship with Paul's boss, Frank (Denis O'Hare), seems to have an emotional charge, and perhaps a history, we never quite understand.

Despite the inherent antagonism of their roles, Stephanie and Lydie forge an intense relationship during their interviews, almost without realizing it. In her own mind, Lydie remains detached and professional; in fact she leans toward the clinical conclusion that Stephanie was not deranged, and may be criminally culpable for her acts. Stephanie, meanwhile, tells Lydie things she hasn't told her best friend: about the charismatic 19-year-old Marine recruit who took her virginity and swore he didn't come inside her; about the personal "jinx" she detects around her in the universe; about locking herself in that ski-resort toilet stall and choking back her screams.

Brougher's camerawork is intimate and economical. (Her cinematographer is David Rush Morrison.) Lydie's face, wry and sardonic, and Stephanie's, looking as if it's about to slip beneath the waves of despair, become landscapes every bit as important as the scraggly Catskill scenery. I suppose many distributors were scared off this picture because it engages hot-button topics like abortion, sex education and fetal murder. Those issues aren't irrelevant to Stephanie's predicament, but they aren't what the movie's about, and Brougher's script never editorializes (which may frustrate some viewers). Despite an overly abrupt and oblique conclusion, this is a major American film, announcing the arrival of an independent director who deserves all the hype.

"Stephanie Daley" opens April 20 at the Angelika Film Center in New York, April 27 in Los Angeles, May 11 in Boston, May 25 in San Francisco, June 1 in Chicago and June 29 in Denver, with more cities to be announced.

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