The earliest reviews in this list baffle me. While this film does deal with violence towards women (that's the whole point, really), it hardly "celebrates" it. Very little violence is actually shown on- screen, and much of it is male-on-male.
Threat is certainly present throughout the film. An oppressive sense of impending danger suffuses nearly every frame. We're made constantly aware that certain male characters are teetering on the brink, and that the women and girls around them are likely to suffer the consequences. This threat, once invoked, serves the film so well that very little on-screen violence is required to keep the audience in a state of anxious, horrified dread.
For example, we learn early on that a police officer is being sent on a forced vacation due to his drinking and unruly behavior. We also learn that his marital difficulties have resulted in his wife's hospitalization. When asked about an injury to his hand, he jokes about someone hitting herself on it. Though he's obviously beaten his wife into the hospital, we're not shown the incident as we would be in an exploitation film.
We later see the same character cavorting with two prostitutes in a brothel. The scene isn't at all violent, but we learn that the brothel owner is angry because the man has harmed one of his employees and "likes to make women bleed". Tellingly, this is seen primarily as a property crime by the odious brothel owner.
I can see why aggrieved antifeminists might object to the film's portrayal of masculine brutality, but the filmmakers hardly seem to endorse the horrors they depict. Nor do I read the final scene as a "hopeful" sign of better things to come. The closing scream is one of rage.
