ONE of the more interesting films to open in US cinemas over the April 20-23 weekend was Stephanie Daley, a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller starring Tilda Swinton and Amber Tamblyn.

The film follows the case of 16-year-old Stephanie Daley (Tamblyn), who is accused of murdering her newborn despite claiming that she never knew she was pregnant and that the child was stillborn.

Enter forensic psychologist Lydie Crane (Swinton), who is hired to determine the truth behind Stephanie’s continuing state of denial. Lydie is pregnant herself and grappling with her shaky marriage, as well as a growing intuition that something may go wrong with her own unborn child.

Her encounters with Stephanie soon lead her to believe that unraveling the teenager’s mystery is crucial to her own fate and the resulting parallel journeys lead each woman to a place of self-realization and acceptance.

Directed from her own screenplay by Hilary Brougher, Stephanie Daley has impressed the majority of American critics for the sensitive way it handles the subject matter and the brilliance of its performances.

Brougher, herself, credits the Sundance Institute and its writers’ labs for helping to iron out some of the script’s biggest problems and put forward something that could appeal to potential studios – especially since, by her own admission, a subtle story about two troubled pregnancies required some selling.

But after seven years in development, Stephanie Daley has subsequently found many friends upon its release.

Entertainment Weekly, for instance, stated that “this lacerating drama from writer-director Hilary Brougher shines a piercing light onto some of the hidden terrors of women, especially in an era where abstinence can shade ignorance”.

While The New York Times wrote that “without standing on a soapbox Stephanie Daley suggests a tragic gap between men who judge and women who feel”.

Variety, meanwhile, opined: “A ripped-from-the-headlines premise – a teenage mother accused of killing her newborn – provides the catalyst for a taut, provocative, sometimes overreaching but always absorbing thriller.”

And Newsday stated: “Brougher’s film would seem more like the drudge work of a lot of made-for-TV melodramas if it weren’t for its plausibly raw suburban atmosphere and the zone of intimacy established by both co-producer Swinton and, especially, Tamblyn.”

On the evidence of its US reaction, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on Stephanie Daley as it makes its way across the Atlantic.

• Delicious
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• Stumbleupon