One sister, Deb, seems to have everything in her life go awry. Yet, her buxom sister, Kath, seems to have the world on a string with the perfect husband, Terry, and a stable life. What is the filmmakers' goal in depicting such divergent lives? Is the high-spirited Deb merely sassy, or does she have other, deep-seated and unresolved issues in life?

Deb experiences a mother's worst nightmare when her daughter, Bridget, a single mom just like her mother, wanders off and is never seen again. Deb mourns the loss of Bridge while raising the little out-of-wedlock boy Jesse. Deb also has bum luck with men, experimenting first with an abuser (Ray),then a philanderer (Chris).

The film portrays an astonishing transformation in Deb, as she seems to mature and steady herself in her late 30s. Yet it was difficult to believe that she was capable of becoming a supervisor of workers in a nursing home and somehow was a shrewd labor negotiator and activist in negotiating a contract dispute.

Much of the film seemed ghoulish and maudlin with the explosive outbursts of Deb and the despicable behavior of Ray and Chris. While driving drunk, it was difficult to believe that Deb walked away from a car crash when she careened off the road like a missile. Another scene that stretched credibility beyond the pale was Deb's visit to a prison to have a conversation with the alleged killer of her daughter. And we never even heard what was spoken!

At the close of "American Woman," the camera pans around the empty house of Deb with the "for sale" sign in front. The little home is filled with memories, and almost all of them are bad. How much of this was Deb's own doing, and how much of it was just rough luck? The film artists do not venture a guess in answering the major questions they raise about the vagaries of life that leads to a case study of an American tragedy.

"American Woman" is one of those movies that seems obsessed with making middle America look like the most depressing place on the planet. The filmmakers must have been in a bad mood and looking to take it out on somebody, so they chose to do so by heaping crisis after crisis on top of their heroine, a troubled wild child of a woman played by Sienna Miller. The film follows her trajectory from single mom of a teenage girl in the 1980s, to 40-ish single woman raising her teenage grandson. In between, she suffers the disappearance of her daughter, a couple of lousy men, and a contentious relationship with her mom (Amy Madigan) and sister (Christina Hendricks). She's a total pain in the butt and annoying as hell at times. Some of the things that happen to her are out of her control, but much of what happens to her is the result of her own terrible decisions. So why should we care?

Because she's played by Sienna Miller, giving one of the most underrated performances of the year. I always find myself saying that I don't have to like characters in a movie or book in order to enjoy it, but I do have to find them compelling enough to spend time with, and this movie is a good example of that. I don't know that I ever liked Miller's character exactly (I certainly wouldn't want to spend much time with her),but I did warm to her tremendously and found myself feeling compassionately toward her, and that's entirely due to Miller's fierce performance. There are a couple of gems to be found in the supporting performances as well, notably those of Hendricks and Madigan. Aaron Paul pops up half way through the film as one of Miller's guys, and he's decent, but why he decides to talk like Christian Bale in "Batman" I couldn't ever quite figure out.

Grade: A

Why make beautiful actresses play trash? Not convincing as such trash. She looks middle class. The knocked up thing and the swearing feels contrived. Sienna Miller acts well enough. Her character is so unlikeable as she raises her missing daughter's kid. There is a fairly moving scene when she brings the kid to see his father. Vaguely want to see what happened to her daughter. Also things get better when Aaron Paul enters the scene. But everything that can go wrong goes wrong. Depressing story without much entertainment value. Don't get why it was made.