"The Dead Girl" is a powerful film that follows the trail of a serial killer. This extremely dark and adult independent feature skillfully weaves together five narratives about women that come together into a seamless whole.

The film starts slow and it creeps up on you. It's so original and well developed that it puts many of the year's other multi narrative films (such as the slightly overated "Babel") to shame.

The film was directed by Karen Moncrieff who did the equally skilful, but somewhat less ambitious "Blue Car" a few years back.

The film's opening section, "The Stranger," features Toni Collette (in her umpteenth fine performance this year) playing Arden who calls the police after she finds a corpse of a young woman. As a result, she must withstand the mental abuse of her hermit-like and psychotic mom (played by a wonderfully over-the-top Piper Laurie) who is fanatical about her privacy.

Arden's life situation is so intolerable that we have suspect that she will kill her mom. Arden later hooks up with a tattooed stranger who may or may not be the killer, and puts her own life in danger.

"The Wife" focuses on a working class couple in a dysfunctional marriage. The shrewish wife constantly nags her husband, and he storms out and leaves her for days. The wife finds some strange evidence in her husband's storage space that makes her suspect he has a sinister secret life.

"The Sister" focuses on a young forensic student (Rose Byrne) who tries to convince her mom that the dead girl is her daughter. She does it because she can't stand the uncertainty of not knowing, and she wants to lay her sister's memory to rest.

In "The Mother" a mom goes looking for her missing daughter and gets help from a prostitute caught in tragic circumstances.

But the most effective episode is the finale (titled "The Dead Girl") in which a drug addicted prostitute desperately tries to make it to her daughter's birthday. Along the way, she makes some very bad decisions, but her penalty is undeserved.

"The Dead Girl" manages to involve us deeply in the lives of five very different women, and nearly every conceivable type of woman is represented in the film, so the film can be seen as a celebration of female diversity.

But "The Dead Girl" is so subtle and multi layered that several viewings are required to grasp its full achievement.

My advice is to see it once at the theater, and either rent or buy it so you can see it a second time. The film expands and improves with each viewing.