A scrappy young woman named Nola (Emmy Rossum) fights off the sexual advances of her violent stepfather and high-tails it to New York City to find the birth father she never knew. Nola also wants to be a songwriter, but first she has to take a job as a diner waitress, which leads to a job as an administrative assistant for the high- class madam, Margaret (Mary McDonnell), who also owns the diner.

Still with me?

One of Margaret’s clients — a Donald Trump-style mogul named Niles (Thom Christopher) — is assaulted by one of Margaret’s ‘‘girls,’’ a transsexual prostitute named Wendy (Michael Cavadias). This leads to a nasty legal showdown, in which Nola’s boyfriend Ben (James Badge Dale) — short-order cook by day, law student by night — must defend Margaret.

This leads to an even nastier physical encounter, in which Nola agrees to spank the diaper-clad mogul, in exchange for the freedom of her junkie mother, whom the mogul has kidnapped.

I’m out of breath just recounting this plot, so you can imagine the contact high I enjoyed while watching it unfold.

‘‘Nola’’ — the writing and directing debut of Alan Hruska — doesn’t make a lick of sense. But this no-budget indie has a certain arbitrary appeal: Anything can happen (and it often does), and the actors are wise enough not to treat the material too seriously.

Hruska has more than a few kinks to work out (next time, for instance, he might want to decide if he’s making a drama or a spoof before rolling the cameras). But I like his sense of the absurd and his affection for soap- operatic plot machinations.

With a little bit of visual imagination, and a lot more discipline, there might be a Pedro Almodovar-style farce in Hruska’s future.

'Nola'

Starring: Emmy Rossum, Mary McDonnell, James Badge Dale
Playing: Now playing throughout the Valley
Rating: R (sexual content, violence) Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Grade: B-