After seeing this film at it's world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival I have to report that I am very disappointed. This is a truly awful movie. There is no plot or overall story to the film. It is just about Jolene travelling around the country going from guy to guy. She learns nothing about her experiences and leaves us feeling absolutely no sympathy towards her character whatsoever, in fact our lack of sympathy for her comes very early on in the movie and lasts for the entire duration despite one attempt near the end which seems very rushed and forced. As Joelene moves on in her journey she comes across numerous characters and different situations, each of these situations being the same as the last one and leaving us wondering if this film is actually going to go anywhere or not, or if a plot or story is going to unfold at some point. The makers of this film had access to a great cast. I've seen these actors shine in other movies which makes it even more shocking to me that they decided to take a part in this film, none of the roles did the actors talents any justice. The script is terrible and feels like it has been written by someone who has not experienced real life. The dialogue is very simplistic and the characters and situations seem very cliché. I've seen these same characters and same events in other films, but done much better. There is nothing unique about any of it. The wardrobe, set dressing and makeup also seems to be very amateur, camp and over dramatic. One character in particular, 'Coco' has been made to look exactly like Johnny Depp, reminiscent of the way Depp looked in his early years, which is very cringe making. The actor playing Coco also looked very much like Orlando Bloom and so I spent much of his screen time trying to decide whether it was him or not, due to the actor's bad accent which got me thinking 'Is this Orlando Bloom trying to do an American accent?', however I was wrong, it wasn't Bloom. The actress playing Jolene wasn't that bad and I would like to see her in more films, however the script and directing could not save her on this occasion. I would like to see what she could do with a solid script and a better director. There was absolutely no flare from the director, it was very conventional and safe movie making. The script was bad, but the director could have made something a lot better out of it, unfortunately he failed to do so. I know this film was based on a book, but I am judging this movie by itself and I am afraid that it falls very short. If you are looking for an entertaining movie which will take you on a journey, this is not the film for you. I've seen these characters and scenarios before. It's like 'Forest Gump' with a woman, and done badly. This has TV Movie written all over it.
Review of Jolene
