With a calmness that bespeaks confidence, this small, spellbinding second feature by Hilary Brougher brings together two women, trapped in separate states of denial and distress, who manage to end each other's entrapment.

The scary culminating flashback, in which Stephanie gives birth -- in a public restroom, on a high school ski trip -- is a marvel of authentic disturbance.

Brougher has taken material that sounds contrived and potentially exploitative and used her gift for careful observation and restrained emotionality to give it surprising authenticity.

Tamblyn's surprisingly measured performance commands attention.

Some cases should never come to trial, because no verdict would be adequate. You are likely to be discussing this film long into the night.

There is so much to admire and empathize with in Stephanie Daley that it feels almost boorish to quibble about whether the film needs to come packaged as a murder mystery.

Without standing on a soapbox Stephanie Daley suggests a tragic gender gap between men who judge and women who feel.

This is first-rate stuff.

However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.

Braugher perhaps overvalues the parallels between Stephanie and Lydie. The scenario is too schematic and diminishes the power of each woman's story. She frames the drama as a cross between a whodunit and a whydunit, and neither strategy is entirely successful.

The film itself is dark and chilling, if occasionally plodding, but worth seeing for the absorbing potency of its main performances.

A stark, painful drama about pregnancy--a subject rarely treated this fully, candidly or tragically.

This is grim material, but director Hilary Brougher -- working from her own script that won a Sundance award -- examines the lives of these two suffering women without sensationalism or preaching.

It is provocative, smartly made and truly independent.