Jolene

A perennially disadvantaged Southern belle, Jolene (Chastain) jumps from town to town and skeezoid to skeezoid, trying to build a life for herself. But her circumstances have less to do with her lack of economic opportunity than the film’s dedication to stacking the deck against her: One minute a guy’s making Jolene patently false promises, the next she’s getting sodomized on her wedding night. There’s no pleasure in watching the repeated sexual exploitation of the eponymous heroine in Dan Ireland’s adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s short story; that there’s little purpose to this abuse, however, is absolutely unforgivable.