Recently released on DVD: "Downloading Nancy"

Jason Patric, Maria Bello

Grade: F

A nasty exploitation flick tarted up with art-house actors and psychobabble, Downloading Nancy stars Maria Bello as an unhappy hausfrau who goes trolling online to find someone to do her terminal harm. Crosshatched with self-inflicted wounds — she likes to cut herself, mainly, it seems, because such injuries have become an indie-film trend — Nancy discovers a partner in extreme pain, Louis (Jason Patric, embracing his role with his usual grim intensity). There will be blood, oh yes, along with a lot of emoting from two actors on the verge of permanent self-parody. Ms. Bello weeps beautifully, but what a waste.

Although the appropriately murky cinematography from Christopher Doyle evokes a dirty aquarium, the movie doesn’t contain a single believable beat or character. Johan Renck, a Swedish native with a lot of commercials and music videos on his résumé, moves the characters around like the stick figures they are. The cliché-ridden script by Pamela Cuming and Lee Ross offers no surprises, even when the story toggles between past and present. Poor Nancy not only comes with a history of abuse, she also has an inept therapist (Amy Brenneman), a cold husband (Rufus Sewell) and plastic on the furniture. These days before a woman can break out of her dollhouse, she really does have to submit to all kinds of hideous abuse.