A hunch...(spoiler)

I had a strong feeling, from the very beginning of the film to its end, that Pookie was being--or had been--sexually molested by her father. Has anyone else thought this?

I have to disagree as respectfully as I can, while suggesting that the original post serves as an example of what an "inkblot" the Pookie character becomes in the movie. Viewers hang a lot of stuff on Pookie, perhaps because she suggests a lot, but not much conclusively... like Jerry, we try to figure her out until it hardly seems worth the effort.

In the novel-- a very rough guide to characterization at best-- the Pookie character was certainly not a victim of molestation. She seems to have been neglected as the product of a loveless marriage, feeling nothing but spite for her parents and upbringing in response, and determined to be as unlike her parents as possible.

The movie version is more complex: in this arcane scenario, Pookie's mother has died during her birth. The narrative strongly implies that Pookie's father has grown to resent Pookie for the loss of his wife, creating a cold, impassable distance between them. She has been "frozen out" of his life... this has devastating effects upon Pookie. The pathological effect of her father's emotional neglect is described most explicitly in the "graveyard" and "mailboxes" scenes. Thus, it appears Pookie's abivalence toward her father is the result of gradually giving up on her effort to secure any sort of loving intimacy with him, leaving her in the grip of an unfulfilled need which is then foisted upon the hapless Jerry. A classic Electra Complex has therefore been overwritten upon Nichols's "The Sterile Cuckoo" by Sargent and Pakula for cinematic purposes.

I don't see the tiniest rudiment of anything suggesting sexual abuse (per se) by her father. Is there any evidence for that, stated or implied in the dialogue, for instance? I know she hated the idea of visiting home, as would any incest victim, but she said it was because her father was "never there"-- neither physically nor emotionally, presumably-- not because he was lurking there awaiting his next opportunity to rape her! Although Pookie certainly has some sort of emotional problems, and these are implied to have their origins somewhere in her narrative background, I simply don't think the incest angle "fits" the dialogue or storyline anywhere I can see.

Any other opinions on this?