Jolene

You go away exhilarated. The movie has been through as many hurdles getting here as dear, sweet Jolene, but sometimes the most engaging movies are the ones worth waiting for.

Chastain, an incandescent redhead with a heart-shaped face and round, shining eyes, does more justice to the part than it deserves.

The tone veers wildly, from wacky indie to melodramatic soap opera. Like the other men in her life, Ireland adores Jolene without entirely understanding her.

Jolene's skin may smell like warm milk to Brad, but to the rest of us it has curdled long before she leaves his bed.

Throughout, Chastain delivers a full-bodied debut performance, but she's ultimately stuck taking her wandering-soul protagonist far more seriously than it-or the film-deserves.

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.

So bad it's almost (but not quite) good, Dan Ireland's Jolene is an unusually elaborate and excruciatingly long vanity production based on a short story by E.L. Doctorow ("Ragtime").