I have not read the E.L. Doctorow novel this is based on, but I'm guessing the film takes a lot of liberties, as Doctorow is usually more sophisticated than this. Jolene (Jessica Chastain) is a Southern-fried child bride who starts a torrid affair with her husband's uncle. She lands in a juvenile detention facility where a butch lesbian guard has designs on her. She escapes, drifts across the country having sex with a variety of sleazy creeps, and becomes a tattoo artist and a Vegas stripper. She finally marries a born-again Christian who (of course) turns out to be a fanatical, wife-beating lout (it has been light-years since we've seen a positive depiction of a Christian in a movie). The plot sounds like an homage to a dumb, 1970s drive-in flick, but JOLENE takes itself too seriously for that, which is its downfall. This is not fun or entertaining---it is ugly garbage loaded with nudity, graphic (and unerotic) sex scenes, and scenes of violence against women. I am astonished by the positive reviews here at IMDb that claim the film is "sweet" and "charming"---I saw none of those qualities. But since others did, judge for yourself.
On a trivia note, a couple of scenes were shot in my old stomping grounds of Prescott, Arizona. At the time, local news reported that Donald Sutherland was in the film. Since he is nowhere to be seen in the finished product, I must conclude this report was in error, or else he had a cameo that ended up on the cutting room floor, which was probably all the better for him.
On a trivia note, a couple of scenes were shot in my old stomping grounds of Prescott, Arizona. At the time, local news reported that Donald Sutherland was in the film. Since he is nowhere to be seen in the finished product, I must conclude this report was in error, or else he had a cameo that ended up on the cutting room floor, which was probably all the better for him.