“The Wildflower” is an infuriating melodrama about victims of abuse in Nigeria, oddly presented as a “dramedy” to the domestic market, as some of what’s being shown is alleged to have a comic intent.

We’re meant to be infuriated by the brutal, sexist patriarchy, a “ociety that “has raised women to mute their voices.” Most every women in the film is harassed, imposed-upon, bullied, beaten and worse.

But the picture is infuriating in other, unintended ways. A pieced-together-script loses track of injustices and story threads, piles characters on in the third act and generally blows what is pretty close to a solid Lifetime Original Movie about sexism and how it enables sexual assault.

How is any of this funny? At one point, we even see a character “breaking” in the midst of a manic, loud shouting match with his character’s wife. As the man later kills the wife he’s been beating regularly, one can wonder about a country where spousal abuse is still considered an object of fun, and where rape isn’t taken as seriously as it has been in the West — at least since the 1970s.

But that’s kind of the point of director Biodun Stephen’s sometimes-moving but often messy movie. IT’s time for Nigeria to take this seriously.

We’re shown three different women, Lagos neighbors, who face abuse. Rolake or “Rolly” (Damilare Kuku) has a masters in architecture and a new job with a handsome, go-getter builder (Deyemi Okanlawon). Her “hero worship” of Gowon Williams doesn’t wholly blind her to the red flags that go up.

He comments on her appearance, suggestively, and seems eager enough to bring his new personal assistant along on business trips. Her boyfriend may be leery, but Rolly isn’t.

Her young friend and neighbor Ada (Sandra Okunzuwa) is a teen forced to navigate the lecherous remarks and bullying of a local womanizer (Zubby Michael). She is warned to steer clear of him, and he isn’t having it.

And Ada’s mother (Toyin Abraham) runs a little spice stall that brings in little money, which means her overdressed, womanizing lout of a husband blows his top whenever he comes home demanding “my food” and there is none there. He beats her and insists it’s his fault.

The only “comic” bit to this relationship might be his attempts at makeup sex and her insults about the experience.

All of these women will be assaulted. One will die, with her killer forgotten in the messiness of this script. One will be arrested for defending herself. And one will be sued for going public about her attack.

Kiki Omeili plays the doctor who treats the sexual assault victims and begs them to go public, involving NGOs and activist groups to start a conversation that could change the culture.

The “good” kind of infuriating here — how angry we get and are meant to get over the ill-treatment facing these women, the cultural biases and police disinterest and ways some women perpetuate these injustices by accepting them, blaming themselves or other women for sexual assault or merely staying silent — never quite outweights the “bad” infuriations in the film.

“Why are you letting a man treat you so carelessly?”

Minimizing a murder, drifting off to include a preacher and his once-raped wife’s debates on speaking out, suggesting Rolly’s boyfriend might become a court case spy for the rapist but not making that clear, court scenes that misunderstand legalese, those are as vexing as some of the arch dialogue, characters that border on caricatures and plot contrivances.

But all that said, strip away the attempts at comedy and “The Wildflower” would play and cleanly make its points in most any culture, not just a Nigerian market that perhaps prefers their social justice stories leavened with abuse jokes and boys-will-be-boys tolerance for the sexism that enables abusers.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, rape

Cast: Damilare Kuku, Deyemi Okanlawon, Sandra Okunzuwa, Toyin Abraham, Zubby Michael and Kiki Omeili

Credits: Directed by Biodun Stephen, scripted by Niyi Akinmolayan and Mannie Oiseomaye. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:47