Stephanie Daley

''Stephanie Daley'' — retitled ''What She Knew'' for US television — is a 2006 drama film starring Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo, Tilda Swinton and Timothy Hutton. The film, which received a limited release in North America on April 20, 2007, focuses on the issue of teenage pregnancy.

''Stephanie Daley'' was developed at the Sundance Writers' and Filmmakers' Lab and premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, 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 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 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, is raised by her religious parents and attends a school that teaches abstinence-only 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: 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, Brougher came upon many cases of young women who went into shock or disassociation while in labor. Though safe-haven laws 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 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, 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, ''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, 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'' 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'' said, "While making a point of Stephanie's Christian beliefs, Brougher is clearly not interested in creating a polemic, either pro-choice or anti-abortion. This is drama, not tabloid or talk-radio stuff." Mary F. Pols of the ''East Bay Times'' lauded Brougher's decision to " oother 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'' 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 of ''The New Yorker'' 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 of the ''Los Angeles Times'' 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 of ''The Wall Street Journal'' 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

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Further reading

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External links

Official site

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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