i saw the new movie 'palindromes' over the weekend - my sweetie and i hightailed it to the first showing on saturday morning, because i was so incredibly excited to see the latest movie by the writer/director of 'welcome to the dollhouse' and 'happiness', and i was really interested to see how he was able to pull off the idea of casting seven different actors to play the lead character, a little girl named aviva.

a couple of hours later, we left the theater a bit non-plussed. i'm not gonna spoil the movie for those who want to go, but the only thing that i think worked in the movie was the weird casting of the main character. the film is about a girl who wants a baby to love and care for, and how she has to struggle with her family, who would have her get an abortion if she became pregnant; and the people she meets when she runs away from home, who would protect her decision to have a baby, but who'd think of her as a 'child whore' for getting pregnant in the first place.

i thought the movie was too angry without offering any kind of solutions or redemption. i'm getting tired of hipster cynicism and bleakness and movies that end on a sad note without resolving anything for anyone. sure, life is like that. but if we want to observe the emptiness of the human condition, we have dozens of reality tv shows from which to choose at any given moment. art should take us somewhere else. and this movie doesn't. it's almost as if the director is flipping the bird at the audience..."i'm angry, everything's hopeless, there's no love anywhere, and fuck you."

well, no. fuck YOU, todd solondz. lighten up.

a lot's been made over the pro-choice/pro-life argument in this movie, and the schtick solondz has been cultivating with this movie is, "i'm not going to tell whether i'm pro-choice or pro-life because i want people to make their own decisions". i think solondz's sensibilities are more transparent in this movie than he'd like to boast. anyone who understands passive-aggressive behavior will see right through his contrarian pretentions.

finally: solondz needs to give it up with the pop culture kitsch humor and the little girls wearing too-tight unicorn t-shirts. we get it. 'nsync is tacky. unicorns are retro and gaudy. rainbow belts are an artifact of the '70s. trapper keepers were ubiquitous. really. REALLY. we get it. ho ho ho. ha ha ha. hee hee hee. there. we laughed. we get it. now move on.

i think todd solondz is a really amazingly talented writer and director, and he has the ability to write really funny, intelligent social satire. he can create characters that are realistic in some ways, but fantastic in others. he has a really unique voice. however, i think he might be a little too caught up in his own hipster cred novelty and making movies for people who are still praising him for creating dawn weiner. i'd love to see his next movie be about something completely unrelated to geeky kids who still dress like it's 1978, and the grown-ups who try to molest them. maybe something involving, i don't know, meg ryan and an out-of-control trash compactor. just a thought!

anyone else see this over the weekend?

So how do you REALLY feel?

I do get ya. SOme director can get a little too into themselves and their "art". I sorta felt the sameway about Gus Van Sants (sp?) movies. Way too pretentious. WHat gets me is when a director won't move away from some of the things that made their previous movies quirky. They end up peppering their movies with details they use over and over. Sometimes it works...oft times it doesn't.

I do have to say about Hollywood endings though...I don't need to have a happy ending...nor do I need an ending that leaves me vacant. I think that like the "twist" at the end of movies now...this has become sort of a "signature" of art directors in movies...who don't want to give you the typical hollywood ending...so they go for the exact opposite.

By the way...racecar is my favorite palindrome.

I don't even have to read the entire thread to know that I agree. Man, it was a big mistake going on a date to this film.

I never liked todd.

Anxiety said:

Me, I'm tired of hipsters, but cynicism and bleakness? Love 'em!

Why do you feel art should "take us somewhere else"?

Ace said:

i felt like the cynicism and bleakness were empty calories in this movie. in a film like 'ghost world', or even todd solondz's own 'happiness', we have bleakness and cynicism, but there's something we can take from it. we can relate to the frustrations of some of the characters, or we can look at some of the ridiculous characters and think, "wow, people really ARE like that...maybe I'M like that..." and it can challenge perceptions and maybe even bring about some kind of internal dialog about how we are treated and how we treat ourselves and others. i think it's great to be cynical and bleak, as long as those messages are in some way productive or insightful. this movie was just like a 'greatest hits' of pretentious urban hipster stereotypes of supposed 'non-hipster' people. i thought it was insulting and obvious. i thought it was easy and lazy.

I'm not going to read the review. I just say "Storytelling" and really liked his first two movies. This one sounds really interesting and I hope to catch it before I leave Ann Arbor for the summer. It's supposed to be playing in May.

VinnyM27 said:

well, i'll give it this: it's not boring.

that, and the multiple casting of the lead character does work.

Anxiety said:

His movies are never so great that you want to own them and watch them again and again, but they are never boring!

And the second part about the lead characters is what really hooked me (I think Ebert said the best performance was from an older and larger African American woman). Sounds interesting....

VinnyM27 said:

yeah, the big black lady is awesome. all the girls are awesome. to me, that's the only positive thing i took from that movie - the acting was really great...and poor ellen barkin had to play one of the most one-dimensional characters of her career, and she did it with a bang.

as for watching his stuff over and over, i have no idea how many times i've seen welcome to the dollhouse, but i'll grant you 'storytelling' as one i wouldn't rush to add to my collection.

I will go to see this movie, but I'm not surprised to hear negative reactions - it seemed pretty apparent with Storytelling that Solondz had painted himself into a corner. Relentless nihilism can only carry you so far. I didn't mind Solondz showing contempt and hatred for the world with his first two movies cuz I have contempt and hatred for the world most days - but after he made his point (and he made it well, especially with ...Dollhouse) he needed to move on and show us that he's got a few more arrows in his quiver.