''Stephanie Daley'' — retitled ''What She Knew'' for US television — is a 2006
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film starring
Amber Tamblyn
Amber Rose Tamblyn (born May 14, 1983) is an American actress and writer. She first came to national attention in her role on the soap opera ''General Hospital'' as Emily Quartermaine at the age of 11. She followed with a starring role on the pr ...
,
Melissa Leo
Melissa Chessington Leo (born September 14, 1960) is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and two Critics' Choice A ...
,
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...
and
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is the youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at age 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in ''Ordinary People ...
. The film, which received a limited release in
North America on April 20, 2007, focuses on the issue of
teenage pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is pregnancy in a female adolescent or young adult under the age of 20. This includes those who are legally considered adults in their country. The WHO defines adolescence as the period be ...
.
''Stephanie Daley'' was developed at the
Sundance Writers' and Filmmakers' Lab and premiered at the
2006 Sundance Film Festival
The 2006 Sundance Film Festival was held in Utah from January 19, to January 29, 2006. It was held in Park City, with screenings in Salt Lake City; Ogden; and the Sundance Resort. It was the 22nd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival, and the ...
, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
The film also earned Tamblyn a nomination for
Best Supporting Female at the 2006
Independent Spirit Awards and the
Leopard Prize for Best Actress at the 2006
Locarno Film Festival.
Plot
In a small town in upstate
New York, sixteen-year-old Stephanie Daley collapses in a pool of blood while on a school
skiing
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...
trip. A doctor discovers there is
afterbirth in the blood. Soon afterward, the body of a 26 weeks-old baby girl is found in a bathroom stall, its mouth blocked with toilet paper. Despite Stephanie's insistence that her child was
stillborn
Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The ter ...
and that she had no idea that she was
pregnant, she is arrested for the
murder of the child and becomes derisively known in the local news as the "ski mom".
Awaiting trial, Stephanie is interviewed by forensic
psychologist, Lydie Crane, who is approximately 30 weeks-pregnant with a son. Lydie is hired by the prosecution to determine whether Stephanie truly did not know she was pregnant. When Lydie first meets the Daley family, Stephanie's mother is quick to stipulate that Stephanie will not accept a
plea bargain.
As Lydie gets Stephanie to open up about the events leading up to her going into labor, flashbacks show Stephanie's background. Stephanie, a shy, inexperienced teenager who is in her school's
marching band
A marching band is a group of musical instrument, instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass instrument, brass, woodwind instrument, woodwind, and percus ...
, is raised by her religious parents and attends a school that teaches
abstinence-only sex education
Abstinence-only sex education is a form of sex education that teaches not having sex outside of marriage. It often excludes other types of sexual and reproductive health education, such as birth control and safe sex. Comprehensive sex education ...
. One night, Stephanie goes to a party with her friend Rhana, but averse to socializing with others, she retreats to a room alone. Corey, a recent graduate of her high school, joins her and seduces her into having sex. After their encounter, he enlists in the Marines and she never meets him again.
When Lydie asks Stephanie if she knew this was how she got pregnant, Stephanie avoids the question and claims she was being "punished" by God because she was "weak", and that the pregnancy was a "test". Lydie becomes visibly annoyed at this and reveals to Stephanie that she previously gave birth to a stillborn baby herself and asks Stephanie what she thinks Lydie was being punished for.
Presently, Lydie's marriage to architect husband Paul has grown increasingly strained since the death of their stillborn infant, which she gave birth to only three months prior to conceiving the child she is now pregnant with. As Stephanie discusses her sexual history and her relationship with her parents, Lydie is forced to face her hitherto buried emotions about her own lost child. Suspecting Paul is having an affair, Lydie confronts him about it. Paul claims though he has thought about it, he has not slept with anyone else. He also blames the problems in their marriage on Lydie having not properly grieved for their stillborn baby and suggests she does not truly want the baby she is carrying, which Lydie angrily rebukes.
Stephanie recounts the day of the ski trip to Lydie. In the preceding days, none of her friends are aware of a pregnancy, only observing she is gaining weight, and Stephanie, possibly
in a state of denial, does not tell anyone she is pregnant. On the ski slopes, Stephanie begins to go into early labor. She makes it to a bathroom where she quietly but painfully delivers the child on her own. Stephanie says she wrapped the infant in toilet paper and left it there, but still maintains the baby was stillborn.
Some time before her trial is to start, Stephanie is getting a glass of water in her kitchen when a car drives by, with men shouting and heckling her about a baby. This causes Stephanie to break the glass in her hand and unconsciously cut her palm with it, severely upsetting her mother. Stephanie returns to Lydie and says she is going to accept a plea bargain. Lydie states that she thinks this is a good idea and, reaching out to shake Stephanie's hand, she notices the cut and asks what happened. Stephanie recalls to her a memory suppressed from
trauma
Trauma most often refers to:
* Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source
* Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event
*Traumatic i ...
: her baby girl was alive when she delivered her, but was so small, and "her breathing was all wrong", so in her mind she told her child to die, and she did. Stephanie, wracked with guilt, believes she killed her baby with her mind. An emotional Lydie hugs the distraught Stephanie.
Cast
Production
Development
Hilary Brougher first began writing the script in 1999.
Said Brougher, "The script began with my fascination with the idea that people lead secret lives–or keep aspects of their lives secret from those they’re close to—the story of a teenager's hidden pregnancy grew out of that. After I started writing it, I began noticing items in the news. And, people started to tell me about their unexpected and hidden pregnancies–not all of which ended tragically. My research indicated this sort of thing happens often–and it doesn't always make the headlines."
Brougher added, "I realized that news stories just present the facts, but they don’t delve into emotional realities and subtleties of situations...What happens to Stephanie is the sum of many missed opportunities of communication. I wanted to explore how and why that happened, and how, when she starts talking to her mom and to the psychologist, it’s transformative in all their lives."
In her research on concealed pregnancies and women accused of
neonaticide
Neonaticide is the deliberate act of a parent murdering their own child during the first 24 hours of life. As a noun, the word "neonaticide" may also refer to anyone who practices or who has practiced this.
Neonaticide is relatively rare in ...
, Brougher came upon many cases of young women who went into
shock
Shock may refer to:
Common uses Collective noun
*Shock, a historic commercial term for a group of 60, see English numerals#Special names
* Stook, or shock of grain, stacked sheaves
Healthcare
* Shock (circulatory), circulatory medical emergen ...
or
disassociation
Dissociation, as a concept that has been developed over time, is a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences. The m ...
while in labor.
Though
safe-haven laws
Safe-haven laws (also known in some states as "Baby Moses laws", in reference to the religious scripture) are statutes in the United States that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that t ...
have been enacted to combat the problem of
infanticide, Brougher argued the law does not address the root cause of
pregnancy denial and concealment, saying, "
lot of these womencan’t even admit to themselves that they’re pregnant. A heater doesn’t do a freezing person any good unless they can admit they’re cold and turn it on."
Of her script's intention, Brougher said, "I’d like audiences to think about what happens to a women during pregnancy, rather than just the results. There are a lot of films about what happens when a baby is brought home, but ''Stephanie Daley'' is about the window of time during pregnancy, when a woman questions her own identity and her relationship to the world."
The script went through development at the
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...
in 2001. Before finishing the script, Brougher gave birth to twins.
As the film was securing financing in the fall of 2004, Tilda Swinton, who had read the script on the recommendation of her agent, signed on to star as Lydie and also as an executive producer.
Amber Tamblyn signed on that December.
Filming
Filming took place in
Greene County, New York in the towns of
Tannersville,
Hunter and
Catskill.
The ski trip scenes were filmed at
Hunter Mountain.
Principal photography began on September 7, 2005 and wrapped on October 6.
Release
''Stephanie Daley'' had its world premiere at the
2006 Sundance Film Festival
The 2006 Sundance Film Festival was held in Utah from January 19, to January 29, 2006. It was held in Park City, with screenings in Salt Lake City; Ogden; and the Sundance Resort. It was the 22nd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival, and the ...
, where it was awarded with the Waldo Salt Screenwriting prize. It did not get a theatrical release in North America until April 20, 2007, due to the film’s controversial subject matter.
Critical reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''Stephanie Daley'' has an approval rating of 90% based on 51 reviews. The site’s critics consensus reads, "The premise has all the trappings of melodrama, but the excellent performances give the characters complexity and empathy." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Critics lauded the film for its story and attention to detail, particularly Brougher's non-sensationalized approach to a sensitive subject.
[ Owen Gleiberman of '']Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
'' wrote, "Shot in a pinpoint, suggestive handheld style, this lacerating drama...shines a piercing light onto some of the hidden terrors of women, especially in an era when abstinence can shade into ignorance. 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."
Walter Addiego of the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'' said, "While making a point of Stephanie's Christian beliefs, Brougher is clearly not interested in creating a polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...
, either pro-choice
Abortion-rights movements, also referred to as pro-choice movements, advocate for the right to have legal access to induced abortion services including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their pr ...
or anti-abortion. This is drama, not tabloid or talk-radio stuff." Mary F. Pols of the ''East Bay Times
The ''East Bay Times'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, United States, owned by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of Media News Group, that serves Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa and Al ...
'' lauded Brougher's decision to "oot
''The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time'' is an action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in November 1998, and in PAL regions the following month. ''Ocarina of Tim ...
her story in the real world, the world of girls who are afraid to ask questions, afraid to go to their mothers, afraid to take a close look at their own bodies."
Stephen Holden of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' wrote, "Without standing on a soapbox ''Stephanie Daley'' suggests a tragic gender gap between men who judge and women who feel." In 2021, Richard Brody
Richard Brody (born 1958) is an American film critic who has written for ''The New Yorker'' since 1999.
Education
Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York, and attended Princeton University, receiving a B.A. in comparative literature in 1980. He firs ...
of ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' wrote, "Brougher films with a sharp-eyed, vulnerable, yet combative sense of symbolism that nonetheless sticks close to the drama's physical specifics."
The performances of Tamblyn and Swinton were uniformly praised, with Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1991 ...
of the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' writing, "To see Tamblyn's work here, to see her character almost simultaneously embody pain, terror, anguish, embarrassment, regret and just about any emotion you can think of, is to watch the kind of acting the medium exists to provide." Of Swinton, Roger Ebert wrote "few actors can be more quiet, empathetically tactful."[
While some critics felt Lydie’s plot line was unnecessary, with Richard Brody saying that the parallels between her storyline and Stephanie's felt "overly coincidental" and have a "superficial obviousness",] Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern (born October 3, 1932) is an American writer and retired film critic. He wrote for ''Newsweek'' from 1965 to 1983, and then for ''The Wall Street Journal'' from 1995 to 2022. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2005. Morgen ...
of ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' said the film successfully "brings together two women, trapped in separate states of denial and distress, who manage to end each other's entrapment." Turan argued "Lydie and her story become an increasingly effective counterweight to Stephanie's tale as both women, in spheres different and alike, must come to terms with actions taken in the past. Neither woman's experience, finally, would be as effective on screen without the other's, but together they come fully alive."[
In a review that awarded the film 3 and 1/2 stars out of 4, Ebert wrote, "We read about cases like this and think the mothers are monsters. If their babies are alive and found in a trash bin, certainly they exist outside decency and morality, or their values are corrupted. But what led them to that decision? What did they know? What were they taught? What did they fear? I feel it is the responsibility of parents to raise children who know they can tell their parents anything, and go to them for help. If a girl cannot tell her parents she is pregnant, something bad is likely to happen."][
He noted the audience members at the screening he attended were unhappy with the ending, but he applauded Brougher for "the courage and integrity to refuse an easy conclusion," reasoning "What would a satisfactory ending be? Guilty? Innocent? Forensic revelations? We have been tutored by Hollywood to expect all the threads to be tied neatly at the end. But real life is more like this movie: Frightened and confused people are confronted with a situation they cannot understand, and those who would help them are powerless."]
Awards and nominations
Home media
''Stephanie Daley'' was released on DVD by Liberation Entertainment on September 4, 2007.
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
*
External links
Official site
*
*
* {{Mojo title
2006 films
2006 drama films
American independent films
2006 independent films
American drama films
Films scored by David Mansfield
Sundance Film Festival award winners
Films about child death
Teenage pregnancy in film
American pregnancy films
Films about Christianity
Films set in New York (state)
Films shot in New York (state)
2000s English-language films
2000s American films