The Dead Girl

dir. Karen Moncrieff

Consisting of five stories orbiting a single subject—the murder of a young woman named Krista (Brittany Murphy)—The Dead Girl thrives on keeping somber and quiet. Each of the stories involve women troubled by their own realities, be it an overbearing mother, a wayward and distant husband, or a missing daughter of their own. And though not every story is compelling, taken as a whole, Karen Moncrieff's (Blue Car) second film establishes a realistic, and for the most part effective, exploration of a murder's many tangents.

Two of the stories stand out above the rest. "The Stranger," starring Toni Colette as a muzzled woman whose demanding mother (played by Piper Laurie) has completely exhausted her life, establishes an eerie mood, yet by the end turns surprisingly romantic (even with an appearance from the twitchy, and usually annoying, Giovanni Ribisi). And "The Mother," starring Marcia Gay Harden as the murdered girl's mother, is close to perfection, allowing Harden to dig deep into the shock and grief that comes from discovering your daughter was, unbeknownst to you, a single mother and a drug addict.

As for the remaining stories, they run both tepid and cold. "The Wife," starring a hideously coiffed Mary Beth Hurt, solves the film's central mystery in acceptable fashion, though it left me surprisingly unmoved by its bleakness. And "The Sister," with Rose Byrne and Mary Steenburgen, suffers from being only marginally connected to the central story; centered on a mother who refuses to believe her long-missing daughter is dead, its tenuous affiliation makes it feel oddly out of place—more stand-alone than interwoven. Thankfully the final piece, "The Dead Girl," which consists mainly of Brittany Murphy freaking out, brings things to a fitting close. As we're taken through Krista's final hours, The Dead Girl's full impact comes crashing down, and you can't help but leave the theater feeling emotionally abused. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

I Think I Love My Wife

dir. Chris Rock

Chris Rock sure looks unhappy in his latest movie—like, we're talking Richard-Pryor-in-his-PG-kiddie-era levels of misery. To be fair, some of this uneasiness may stem from his relatively straight role as a terminally henpecked, undersexed husband. Mainly, though, the impression is of someone stuck in a trap that he himself constructed: This, the second film that Rock has directed (after the anemic Head of State), registers as a bigger squandering of his talent than all of the prior Bad Companies, Dogmas, and Madagascars combined.

Loosely based on Eric Rohmer's 1972 art-house classic Chloe in the Afternoon, the premise follows Rock's type-A banker as both his home and professional routines are torn asunder by a gorgeous blast from the past (Kerry Washington). There's a perverse appeal in seeing the work of Rohmer—a director who not only delights in watching emotional paint dry, but actually zooms in on the brushstrokes—adapted to the multiplex, but Rock and his cowriter Louis C. K. hedge their bets from the beginning, smothering every moment of potential ambiguity with awkwardly inserted, dusty standup riffs about Viagra, gays, racial difference, and/or Michael Jackson.

Such thematic confusion ends up stranding the (relatively game) supporting cast in limbo. As Rock's wife, Gina Torres isn't given enough space to register as either a domestic goddess or gorgon, while the talented Washington deserves better than her role as a one-dimensional hoochie. (Steve Buscemi does have a few good moments as a horndog coworker, but he's Steve freakin' Buscemi, for God's sake.) Combine with Rock the director's uninspired visual sense and shaky pacing (many scenes end with the camera just kind of floating off to look at famous NY buildings), and the result is a film that expends all of its energy canceling itself out. The flopsweat could be measured in gallons. ANDREW WRIGHT

Premonition

dir. Mennan Yapo

My husband's dead! Waaaaaah!!! My husband's alive! Hooray!! My husband's dead! Again?! WAAAHHHH! My husband's... alive? Whaaa?

Man, it must be hard being Sandra Bullock. One day she wakes up in a pretty shitty marriage and the man she only sorta loves (Julian McMahon) ends up getting killed in a car wreck. Life is so sad. But then, the morning after she gets the news, she wakes up and her stupid (but wicked-hot) husband is eating cereal in the kitchen and mumbling something about how he meant what he said the other day. But she doesn't know what the hell he's talking about—the other day he didn't talk, he died! What the hell is going on?

On top of that, one of little Miss Sandra Bullfrog's daughters is sometimes okay and sometimes scratched all to hell with stitches on her face. And, no surprise, Manic Mommy hasn't a fuckin' clue as to how the wounds got there. There's more! The day after that there's a funeral for Decapitated Daddy. So sad again! But the morning after the service, her husband and his hot ass are taking a shower (sweet!). He's not a ghost, he's real—other people see him. She can touch him, he talks, he still looks hot. What the hell is going on? Is Sandra Boulevard going crazy? Or is she having a PREMONITION (get it?) about her hubby's tragic car-wreck future?

All signs begin to point to crazy—her mom and best friend have her committed—so to prove she's not totally mental, Sandy Bullfighter's gotta figure out what's happening to prove she's not insane. Will she do it in time to save her husband? Will she do it before the movie ends? Eh, who cares. MEGAN SELING