Poor Chloe. All she wants in life is a trip to see the ocean; she lives just 45 minutes away and she's never been there. "It's overrated" sneers live-in boyfriend Randy Spears. He's an unemployed prick who's only interested in eating eggs in his filthy, white-trash bungalow, wearing a stained wife-beater and masturbating Chloe's only friend, Cheyenne, with bottle of lube. Plus, he's sullen and uncommunicative, and after throwing a tantrum when she wants to talk about their relationship, he kicks her out.

Chloe's sobbing out by the train tracks when Able Dickens, a suburban hipster with a Caesar 'do, pulls up in his mom's car. He promises to take her to the beach to watch the sun set. Then he sticks his tongue down her throat. She doesn't object. Promises to meet her in an hour. But car trouble prohibits him from making their meeting, and when an increasingly despondent Chloe finds a razor blade inside a discarded crack kit she slashes her wrist and passes out as the blood oozes from the wound.

Everybody spank!

It's mindfucker James Bonn to the rescue; he drives by and bandages her up before bringing her to his bitchen pad. Turns out Bonn's a doctor. But —why is he taking all her clothes off? And beating off over her unconscious body? Next morning, the good doc suggests Chloe stay with him for a few days, calling in prescriptions for downers to a pharmacy to help her over her stress. She relates her sad story, culminating with the confession that she doesn't believe in love anymore.

Wrong. It's Chloe who "rejects love," insists Bonn. "You don't accept love when it comes to you, and sex is an expression of love," he tells her, after she pulls away from his advances. Furthermore, "Sex is what allows life to continue on this planet. And by most people's definition, life is God." Therefore, of course, "sex would be an act of a Godlike nature." Chloe requires an intensive round of behavior modification so she can "give and accept love again." Terrific; Albert Ellis and Charles Manson, together at last.

And so begins Chloe's programming. As Bonn's unctuous manner and the meds keep her placid and tractable, she's introduced to a variety of increasingly deviant sexual situations, starting with her smearing eggs all over her body —we reap the fruits of Symbolism 101— pouring the yolk on Bonn'n dick and sucking it off. The session is so successful that Bonn continues the therapy with a cell phone antenna up her butt as she gives him a blowjob; her first real ass-fuck by Bonn's abusive pal, Chris Canon; and finally her maiden lesbian experience, courtesy of bisexual coke dealer Barrett Moore, who shoves a beer bottle —the thick end— into Chloe's cooch. She endures all of the encounters, pale, unsmiling, sometimes crying out in pain, and always with huge, listless eyes.

Dickens, meanwhile, is desperate to find this girl he's known for all of five minutes. He calls a friend ("I'm fucking going out of my mind, dude") for help. The guy tells him to call every pharmacy in L.A. (for the edification of our rural friend, that's like, twelve million). And he does it.

After the bottle ordeal, Chloe looks to Bonn, her protector, for comfort. "You've been sucking on Barrett's stinky pussy and now suddenly you wanna cuddle with me? Yeah, right," he snaps; that Anthony-Michael-Hall-in-Pirates-of-Silicon-Valley-I'm-so-innocuous lilt disappearing from his voice. It's the impetus Chloe needs to self-actualize, but just as she makes a move, her knight in shining nostril ring shows up at the door and whisks her away for a hatefully smarmy ending.

Obviously, Chloe is far darker and more interesting than the typical couples film, conventional ending notwithstanding. There are no likable people here; even Chloe is too victimized and pathetic to elicit much sympathy. (And as for Dickens —ostensibly the good guy— he displays the sort of obsessive behavior that will force Chloe to swear out a restraining order on his stalker ass a few years down the line.) The major disappointment is the sex, which often appears so be purposefully anti-erotic. It works well with the script, but this reviewer wishes director Kramski had foregone a bit of realism for something strokable.

Exceptional acting from Chloe and Bonn earns Best Actress/Actor pre-noms for the duo; solid performances form Cannon and Spears make for Best Supporting Actor pre-noms as well. Elsewhere, pre-nom Dickens for Best Non-Sex role, Kramski for Best Director and toss in Kramski and Jeanne Gamine for a Best Screenplay bid, too.