[6] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"[8] 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.
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.
[2] 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.
[17][18][19][20] 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.
"[21] 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.
"[23] 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.
"[24] 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.
"[26] 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",[25][27] 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.
"[28] 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.