"Stephanie Daley" is the kind of little indie that is often better than the more heavily publicized Hollywood product it competes for attention with. In this case, director-writer Hilary Brougher has created an interesting tension between pregnant psychologist Tilda Swinton (whose character has previously had a stillborn child) and Amber Tamblyn's 16 year old, charged with killing her own baby. The setting, a conservative,religious small town, is convincingly created from a composite of three different places in upstate New York. Brougher is not afraid to have her cinematographer shoot in a naturalistic way, sometimes leaving figures in darkness. I especially liked the conception in the supporting roles of Satin, a skeptical pudgy schoolmate,played by Caitlin Van Zandt (I hope we will see more of her) but there is also good support from Timothy Hutton as Swinton's husband, and (as expected) Melissa Leo as Tamblyn's mother. I am not surprised that this was a good movie, as usually anything with Tilda Swinton's name on it (she also executive-produced) is worth trying.

It is strange how people can have a gigantic Hollywood budget, the whole powerful studio support system and churn clunker after clunker. Then someone like the director of this small independent flick, with a minuscule amount of money makes a compelling piece of art. Small town in unidentified part of America, could have been anywhere, with gloomy colorless landscape. Boring, predictable lives, unfulfilled promises, church on Sundays, unspoken words hanging in the air. Makes you want to run for your life.But where can you run? " Stephanie Daley" is an unflinching, sometimes hard to watch movie. Takes us to places we don't want to go, makes us remember things we'd like to forget. I am not sure Hollywood has a place for Hilary Brougher. People who have something to say can be nuisance. They can force us to think, and we can't have that,can we.

This is one of those movies that looks like it was developed from the Sundance workshops... and what do you know? Hallmarks of the category include female chauvinist perspectives, emasculated or violent male characters (if there are any men to speak of), long stagnant takes shot on digital video, and an aggressive tendency toward unresolved endings. This has most of them.And I don't care, because Tilda Swinton is plenty of reason to watch any movie. Even THE BEACH. Okay, I won't go that far. But she is pretty exciting. To paraphrase the old line, I'd pay to watch her go to the bathroom... and, in this movie, I get to. Several times. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Not that I ever wanted that... alright, enough on this subject.Plus Amber Tamblyn, who far from sucks here, and Melissa Leo, who never gets enough to do in movies - though, Jesus, girl, you are racking up the films lately. I think Leo's made as many films in the last four years as she made her entire previous career - though, again, she usually doesn't get too many lines.Actually, Hilary Brougher raises this picture somewhat above its disadvantages through nuance, innuendo, and lack of blatancy, though this very ambiguity does ultimately queer the ending, as in, I don't really get what's going on with the shrink character when credits roll. Not that I need everything spelled out, but I need to know what language we're speaking. Perhaps Sudden Cutaway to Overexposed Window means something in Girrrlish.Maybe I need to bone up on my Independent Woman Filmmaker symbolism. Or maybe I need to shut up before I get slapped with a Thoughtless Human with Penis label and written into another script where men fail to make the world entirely comfortable for women.

Writer/Director Hilary Brougher has created a deeply involving and moving masterwork of film with her little independent low budget STEPHANIE DALEY. Brougher has courage to address an issue most people wish to submerge - that of unwanted teenage pregnancies and their consequences - and she does it in the form of a story that is so well woven and presented with such fine actors that she not only succeeds in bringing attention to her main topic, she also introduces us to two women whose lives, though separated by years of age, are significantly parallel. The result is a film that lingers in the mind long after the closing credits.Stephanie Daley (Amber Tamblyn) is a 16-year-old girl, shy, introverted and on the periphery of the social scene at high school until she meets a boy with whom she has consensual sex. The focus of her life changes as she grows in girth and at one dramatic point she gives birth to a fetus inside a bathroom stall which she secretly discards: no one knows Stephanie's secret. When she is examined, she is told she was pregnant, a fact which she denies. A forensic psychologist Lydie Crane (Tilda Swinton), pregnant herself, is brought into the case to examine Stephanie and help the court decide the truth about what happened. As Stephanie opens up to Lydie, Lydie begins to acknowledge her own conflicts about her current pregnancy with her husband Paul (Timothy Hutton): their first pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth and the current pregnancy began three months after that unresolved tragedy. When Lydie is not at her job she faces a world of people including a friend Frank (Denis O'Hare) who make her consider her own concepts of right and wrong. Lydie and Stephanie work together on the concept that 'the truth is what we believe'. How these two women reach the conclusions they do is the part of the story that is best left unshared until the viewer experiences it alone.The cast is so fine that to single out one would be a disservice to the ensemble effect director Brougher has achieved. Tilda Swinton continues to finesse her extraordinary gifts as an actress and the young Amber Tamblyn makes a significant stride for her career. There is a small role for fine character actress Novella Nelson as Doctor Lynn that is a remarkable achievement. This is a film with a tough subject matter, handled with the utmost dignity, and makes a social statement while glowing as a superb independent film. Highly recommended. Grady Harp