Jolene

 Jolene 2008

• Director: Dan Ireland
• Based on the story by E.L. Doctorow
• Cast: Jessica Chastain, Frances Fisher, Rupert Friend, Dermot Mulroney, Chazz Palmenteri, Theresa Russell
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Jessica Chastain – X-Men Dark Phoenix, Molly’s Game, The Martian, Interstellar, Zero Dark Thirty, The Help, The Tree of Life, Coriolanus, Take Shelter
• Frances Fisher – Woman in Gold, The Lincoln Lawyer, The House of Sand and Fog, Titanic, The Stars Fell on Henrietta
• Rupert Friend – Young Victoria, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Libertine
• Dermot Mulroney – The Mountain Between Us, August Osage County, Burn After Reading, Zodiac, Undertow, About Schmidt
• Chazz Palmenteri – Legend, Yonkers Joe, The Usual Suspects
• Theresa Russell – Kafka, Insignificance
• Why? It sounded good.
• Seen: 15 July 2022      

       Jolene (Chastain) marries when she is fifteen to get away from abusive foster parents, only to discover that her uncle-in-law is a lech. But she falls in love with him. It ends badly. Ten years of wandering the land, taking up with one lover after another, ensue.

       Chastain is good but it’s very hard to care for Jolene. I would like to see it as a feminist protest against the exploitation and victimisation of women but if that was the aim, it really missed the mark, and I doubt very much if that was the intention. It’s sleazy and full of clichés and I don’t much like it. Or maybe it’s a parody of something. I still don’t much like it. 

2* of 5