Amber Tamblyn and Tilda Swinton Work Through Traumatic Pregnancies in Stephanie Daley

Several years ago, CBS introduced Joan of Arcadia, a quirky and challenging show about a teenager who receives a series of ambiguous divine instructions. It only lasted two seasons, but that was enough to make its star, Amber Tamblyn, an actress for me to watch. Yesterday, my friend Libbie and I watched a movie starring her, along with Tilda Swinton, who played the White Witch in the Narnia movies. It was good to see her again, though I’m not entirely sure what I thought of the film.

We saw it on Lifetime, and the movie, written and directed by Hilary Brougher, was entitled What She Knew, though when I looked it up on IMDb, it was listed as Stephanie Daley, the name of Tamblyn’s character. Stephanie is a teenager standing trial for the death of her baby. Swinton plays Lydie, a psychologist who meets with her periodically in an effort to determine whether she realized she was pregnant and whether she willfully killed her own child. The movie alternates among conversations between these two, flashbacks to the preceding year before Stephanie got pregnant and gave birth and current-day scenes involving either Lydie or Stephanie.

Lydie is pregnant, and about a year earlier, she lost a baby about 20 weeks into pregnancy. As a result, Stephanie’s story has deep resonance for her, and she finds it hard to let go of the case when she’s at home. It’s affecting her marriage, which is already undergoing difficulties. Swinton does a good job of depicting her attempt to juggle personal turmoil with professional distance. But Tamblyn’s the one who really drew me in.

The current day finds her sullen and taciturn, though she gradually opens up to Lydie, and their blossoming relationship reminded me a bit of the one at the heart of The Sixth Sense. In the flashbacks, she starts off seeming like a pretty happy, well-adjusted teen. She seems much younger and more innocent, and we watch her become more and more withdrawn as her pregnancy progresses. It’s a pretty compelling performance.

The men don’t come off so well in this movie. It’s implied that Lydie’s husband is having an affair, though we never get absolute confirmation of that. We see only the beginning and the aftermath of Stephanie’s lone sexual encounter; while it seems to have been somewhat consensual, the boy comes across as taking advantage of her naivety, especially since he drops out of her life after that. There’s also an undeveloped subplot involving an old friend of Stephanie’s who seems to have been molested by a teacher.

Though this was in theaters, it seemed very much in keeping with Lifetime and was all about two women trying to work their way through similar experiences that only another woman could fully appreciate. There’s a lot of symbolism in the movie, particularly with deer and cats, but viewers are left to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The ending feels pretty ambiguous and abrupt, and some scenes don’t quite seem to fit in. The Tamblyn-Swinton scenes serve as the movie’s foundation, and there’s an energy to the film in those moments that it lacks in other scenes. In the end, those two performances impressed me, but the film itself failed to grip me very much. Worth a watch, but hardly the best project either actress has taken on.