Palindromes

Todd Solondz returns with an excellent piece of film making in this very twisted fairy tale. It tells the story of Aviva who desperately wants to have a baby despite being very young. She craves loving attention and when not getting it at home believes that having a baby will bring her a strong enough bond to fill her emotional void. On falling pregnant after her first sexual encounter her parents insist she has an abortion, this she does but not happy she runs away from home. And so her story begins as she travels from one bizarre encounter to another, some funny and some sad. The pace of the film is pitched just right and it takes you along with the trial and tribulations of Aviva despite her being played by several different characters. This has been done to play with the audience's preconceptions of how you identify with a character depending on how they look and it works to startling effect. In between Aviva leaving home and the emotional reunion with her parents we are subjected to the seedy underbelly of Middle America within an array of characters the league of gentlemen boys would struggle to make up. Nothing seems taboo to Solondz and this makes for a refreshingly different movie experience if you can get your head around it. Shocking in places but ultimately rewarding to anyone prepared to give palindromes a chance.

Whenever a film by Todd Solondz comes out I'm excited. The reason I'm excited and the reason most people are excited is because you know it's going to break all kinds of taboos and be disgusting and tasteless and blah, blah, blah. When you sit down and view a Solondz feature you know it will be one sick friggin' movie, and 'Palindromes' definitely delivers on that account. It's not so much 'Palindromes' breaks so many taboos is that it is perhaps his most unsettling film. Yes, even more unsettling then his most acclaimed work 'Happiness' which followed a perverted prank caller, a serial-killing fatty, a struggling novelist who wished she was raped as a little girl and a psychiatrist who is secretly a homosexual pedophile. 'Palindromes' is unsettling because it deals with such a dark and very realistic element of life -- childhood pregnancy. We follow a little girl (played by different actresses in every section including a morbidly obese black woman and JENNIFER JASON LEIGH!) who has an abortion because her mother (Ellen Barkin) makes her. The little girl is confused and angry so she runs away and finds what could be solace with a simple country Christian household that adopts disabled children who form a Christian pop band while the man of the house conspires to murder abortion doctors. It's one sick film, but it's also poignant too.

All of the actresses who play the little girl do a very fine job. Ellen Barkin is solid in her really nothing role, while Mathew Faber (who reprises his role from 'Welcome to the Dollhouse') is hysterical and consistently a pleasure to watch especially during his 'nobody ever changes in life' speech at the end which seems to be one of the main points Solondz's 'Palindromes' tries to get across. I feel Solondz tries to open our eyes by saying not everything is what it seems and life isn't a beautiful perfect thing. He expresses this by showing us a seemingly wholesome family with good "christian" values who commit such disgusting and heinous acts such as murder. 'Palindromes' is a very dark movie on one hand, but a very hysterical one on the other. The scene where the disabled kids are singing in their Christian pop band caused me to burst into uncontrollable laughter, while the kids' quirky and hilariously satirical dialogue at the breakfast tablee scene reminds of a Brady Bunch Episode from hell.

'Palindromes' is a good film, but it is probably Solondz's weakest effort. I was semi-satisfied with it, but I was really expected a hell of a lot more. The acting was good (but not as good as his other films), the writing was good (but not nearly as good as 'Happiness' or 'Welcome to the Dollhouse) but the directing seemed to be more improved then any of his other films (except that opening scene shot on a camcorder -- I think that was supposed to be very low-budget). Die-hard indie, Solondz or just off-beat film fans will enjoy this, but someone expecting a mainstream feature will detest it. View 'Palindromes' at your own risk. If you find it repulsive and devastating to watch, don't say I didn't warn you. Grade: B

my ratings guide - A+ (absolutley flawless); A (a masterpiece, near-perfect); A- (excellent); B+ (great); B (very good); B- (good); C+ (a mixed bag); C (average); C- (disappointing); D+ (bad); D (very bad); D- (absolutley horrendous); F (not one redeeming quality in this hunk of Hollywood feces).

"Palindromes" is a fascinating visual thought experiment.

Very parallel to Alexander Payne's "Citizen Ruth" in covering some of the same territory about abortion, writer/director Todd Solontz mostly eschews that film's satire and easy jabs for a protean look at an issue that has a more complicated emotional landscape than advocates on either side usually concede.

He does this by literally taking us inside the mind of a young malleable adolescent who intentionally gets pregnant and is surprised at the reactions of those around her. Sometimes we see her as she sees herself, as if we are reading her diary, with her body-hating hopes for a change in hair, skin, age or family, and sometimes we see her as others see her.

Every one wants to control "Aviva" and their hypocritical selfishness is laid bare, regardless of their various good intentions. Her mother sees her still as a baby (a welcome back to the screen for Ellen Barkin who manages to add maternal warmth to hostile dialog) to the discomfiting sexualization (Britney-ization?) of just barely teens that is just barely a step above pedophilia, to how she is seen by pro-life advocates (whose Sunshine Band for "special children" seems almost as exploitative as JonBenet Ramsey's performances) and on in a picaresque dream scape that crosses a nightmare that is a bit extreme, especially for fans of "Welcome to the Dollhouse."

Solontz pulls this off by having every image of "Aviva" (according to the director's production notes) "portrayed by two women, four girls (13-14 years old), one 12-year-old boy, and one 6-year old girl" of widely variant size, shape, color and just about every other possible outward characteristic, even though one haranguer points out that no one can ever really change.

Solontz in a hand-out at the theater defined his use of the title as meaning "a condition of stasis and/or immutability; that part of one's personality or character that resists change, stays the same," but I'm not sure that successfully comes through in this provocative film, especially with some of the acerbic dialog and disturbing actions.

Nathan Larson's music is appropriately eerie, with spooky vocalizations by Nina Persson.

Releasing the film without a rating will probably keep it from being seen by young teens which is too bad as it is a frank and fresh look at the pressures on girls from friends, family and society.

13-year-old Aviva is awkward and sensitive. And she wants a baby. She meets(and yes, has intercourse with) a couple of potential fathers, runs away from home and is at one point with a family of fanatical Christians where most of the members are children who were abandoned because of a disability they have... and this portion is the creepiest and most disturbing thing I've ever seen(and you feel trapped there). Solondz divides audiences yet again. This has been called provocative, smart, artsy, disgusting and honest, and I think it is all of the above. No, the man is not "well", mentally. The line between genius and madman is thin, if there is one. While this doesn't mean that we should accept everything that is offensive, I do think that this one offers enough insight and poses important questions. Sometimes you have to break the rules, go against taboo, to point something out. If there isn't a message, or it is a purely destructive one, we can discard the work as "wrong". This confronts abortion from several angles, with the usual black, frank approach and existentialism of the writer/director. The story's structure is a palindrome, and several of the names are... because we never really change. We are what we are, and the fundamentals of that remain the same. There are a handful of different people portraying our lead, including a boy(not unlike I'm Not There). This is to show her emotional state at the time, and all we ever see of others are projections, anyway, we never truly see the entire person. Every single role in this is perfectly cast, and the acting is utterly amazing by them all. This arguably makes the point that women want kids, and men want sex. Every character is well-developed, credible and a real human being. We may like them or hate them; we can't help but respond to them. This has few cuts and many long takes. The camera moves if it should, and otherwise not. This is funny at times. The theme song is haunting. There is a lot of pedophilia, a little strong language and brief, bloodless violence in this. The DVD comes with a trailer for this. I recommend this to anyone with a sufficiently open mind to appreciate this. Not for everyone, and not meant to be. 7/10

Obviously the film isn't for everyone and anyone who has seen Happiness or Welcome to the Dollhouse knows what they're in for. The film sat well with me though.. far from the sadistic gut-kickings of Happiness, the characters here are broken softly and with great sadness. The subject matter of the film will turn many people off (violently), but the actual execution I found inoffensive, and a worthwhile trip. I'm convinced that Mark Weiner's reappearance at the end of the film is a stand-in for Solondz himself, as he dryly confirms that he is not a pervert, and is in return told by the protagonist that he is too passionless to be a pervert. There's more soul searching in this film than misanthropy and it's a positive turn for the director.