Painful indeed

I gave this film half a star which Lovefilm certifies as 'painful' - I confess that I only got about 20 minutes through it but after the first scenes I couldn't see how the film could possibly redeem itself. The criticisms of the recent 'Revolution Road' seemed to apply here also although 5 times magnified. When a marriage ends in the violent rape of the wife by the husband - how can spending 2 hours showing the audience how the couple got to this point justify the film? How is the viewer expected to retain a shred of empathy for the husband?