Nola is a reasonably appealing, low-key character study until the unpleasantly bizarre and melodramatic plot kicks in. Newcomer Emmy Rossum is impressive in the title role. She looks like a harmless waif, but there's just enough edge in her performance to make Nola's steely determination plausible. James Badge Dale's turn as Nola's romantic interest, Ben, is equally good. We can almost believe that Ben is both a fry cook and a disinterested law student, and the two leads have enough chemistry to make the potential for romance compelling. But then the plot, involving a high class escort service run by a wealthy woman (cartoonishly overplayed by the usually reliable Mary McDonnell), a maverick newspaper columnist with a shady past (Steven Bauer), and a powerfully evil media mogul (the egregiously mugging Thom Christopher), and encompassing a dramatic courtroom scene, a kidnapping, a determinedly unappealing kinky sex scene, and a prolonged musical number, all apparently in the service of a plea for legalized prostitution, rears its jaw-droppingly ridiculous head. Writer/director Alan Hruska captures the film's New York City locales with skill and affection, and throws together two reasonably interesting characters, then squanders it all in what could conceivably have been an effort to make his film more commercial.