There are so many different ways that the creators of Jaded could have gone about their admittedly interesting plot—a woman is raped by two other women.  It could have easily been a quickie exploitation film, a courtroom thriller, a vengeance-laden drama, or a TV-movie potboiler with lots of crying.  Instead of choosing one of these easily-accessible options, writer/director Caryn Krooth seems to have gone for the gusto, throwing in elements of all of these genres, and ending up with, well, nothing.
Megan (Gugino) is found nude and unconscious on a small-town beach.  After some investigation by local detective Aida Turturro (who does the best she can with some horrible tough broad dialogue--you get sick of her saying "cut the shit" by 20 minutes into the film), it’s discovered Meg’s been raped by two folks named Alex and Pat.  Turturro is joined by D.A. Catherine Dent, and they find out through an Elvis-obsessed bar owner (Christopher McDonald, playing his Christopher McDonald character) that Alex and Pat are, in fact, women.  Clever, isn’t it?
    Well, things get more, um, “clever” from there, as Meg can’t have them arrested for rape because of their lack of phalluses, so the D.A. offers the idea of having them locked up for sodomy, which carries the same sentence.  Megan whines and mopes around like some sort of quivering Linda Blair-via-Tracey Gold TV-movie actress, unsatisfied, possibly because “rape” just sounds so much cooler than “sodomy.”
    If things hadn’t been uneven enough by this point with goofy dialogue and a “good-God-who-did-she-blow-to-get-this-part” performance by Dent that basically involves speaking every line in a determined monotone, showing emotion only through awkward blocking, the rapists finally get some screen time.  Alex is a wimpish housewife whose white trash hubby beats her regularly, and Pat, played gleefully by Rya Kihlstedt, is straight out of a Corman prison movie.  Meanwhile, Meg squirms around and has pretentious, black & white flashbacks that resemble perfume ads.
    When dead rats start popping up in the D.A.’s car, you get the feeling the movie may just be heading somewhere.  This, tragically, is just a ruse.  Lots of “Law and Order”-style investigations follow, as two attorneys squabble and they bring up Meg’s past (it seems she testified for her father in the murder of her mother “in cold blood.”  Does anyone get murdered “in warm blood?”  And would it be that much more acceptable if they were?) in an attempt to get to the big trial—
    --Which isn’t even shown!
    Nope, all of a sudden the movie stops and we see Meg, and her voice-over begins “The trial lasted three weeks.”  Then, there are credits.
    There's so few B-movies with decent-sized female roles that it's nice to see a movie that features almost nothing but women in the leads.  If only there was some sort of, well, sense involved in the actual film.  With the exception of Dent, the acting is all fine, though it seems like every actress was told they'd be in a different movie.  Most disappointing is seeing Ellen Greene given nothing to do in a minor role, featured in only two scenes.  Why bother?  In fact, why bother making this film at all?  What's the point?  The epilogue mentions something about changing rape laws to be less gender-specific, which is handy to know, because the film sure does a lousy job of getting that point across.
    There’s an interesting idea at the heart of Jaded, really there is.  But what kind of movie mixes arty surreal flashbacks, shots of three nude girls frolicking in the water splashing each other, awfully-written “feminist” characters, hopelessly TV-movie dialogue (“Was anything stolen from you?” “I was robbed of my dignity.”  Nnnnnnngh) and gratuitous sax playing?  A mess, that’s what kind.  Drama?  Thriller?  Indie art film?  Exploitation classic?  Try “stinky pile of human waste.”  It’s a bit like every bad point of a Larry Cohen film with none of the attributes.
    On the plus side, the video does feature a trailer for the similarly-themed Kate’s Addiction, which at least looks like it has the decency to realize it’s an exploitation film.