Flower

Max Winkler’s crass and disgustingly amoral “Flower” is a mess of a movie that plays as if it were pitched as “Juno” meets “To Catch a Predator.” Zoey Deutch, who plays the film’s anti-heroine Erica, looks and behaves so much like a lightweight mini-me version of Ellen Page that the connection to “Juno” would be there even if Erica hadn’t been written as a foul-mouthed variant on Page’s wised-up teenaged character.

“Flower” opens with the sound of heavy breathing, and we eventually see that 17-year-old Erica is fellating a cop to sexual climax. He asks her where she learned her oral skills, and she gives him a heavy look and says, “Middle school.” This line is obviously supposed to be humorous and “edgy,” but Winkler (the son of Henry Winkler of “Happy Days” fame) goes for his would-be laughs in such a hard-sell way that they almost never land.

Erica’s father is in jail for trying to rob a casino, and she is trying to earn money to make his bail by blackmailing the older men she services. When Erica is done with the cop, we see two of her young female friends filming him and calling him a pervert and demanding money from him. Winkler presents their cruel behavior as rebellious and righteous.