Todd Solondz's STORYTELLING

[Holden Pike]

Storytelling is the new film by Todd Solondz, the young weirdo responsible for Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) and Happiness (1998). While Storytelling is every bit as daring as those first two efforts (pushing the envelope a little further in one scene), I don't think it's as successful.

This is a more self-aware exercise from Solondz, and as such I wasn't ever involved in it other than on some distant intellectual level. Maybe that was the point, but if so it didn't work for me ultimately, even as primarily a thinkpiece.

Welcome to the Dollhouse is twisted and dark, but there was something universal about it too. Not in the specifics (hopefully), but in that sense of alienation and frustration that those of us who were less-than-popular in middle school can plug into. Similarly in Happiness, even though the specific characters and incidents aren't relateable to anything in my life, the underlying tone of lonliness and the non-judgemental way the characters were presented made for a fascinating and unique flick.

Those kinds of chords weren't struck for me with Storytelling. At times I got the feeling that Solondz was making the movie just to see if those of us who did become invested in Dollhouse and Happiness would blink, if we'd still find his work dark and weird and wonderful, or if it would just be dark and weird. There are some very effective moments in Storytelling, and many of the points Solondz makes about the perception of art - or at least movies as art, are valid. I just wish he had found another vehicle to express them through, a narrative where we could discover those truths rather than a self-conscious exercise where that is seemingly the only point.

And like his other two films, there are going to be a couple scenes that will have the easily offended running for the exits in moral outrage. The "worst" scene in Storytelling is probably worse than anything in the others, but I suppose a lot of that will depend on your personal taste.

That moment, which without saying what characters are involved or the context is a sex scene, is very strange on another level: Solondz decided to appease the MPAA by censoring the graphic visual nature of it himself. A digital character was added, as in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, to block the "offending" images. But in a defiant and comical way, the character is a large red rectangle that completely covers the two people involved in this act. This rectangle is a microcosm of what I don't like about the movie. As an idea it's quite right, even fitfully funny. But what it does to the flow of the narrative is beyond distracting, and instead of adding one element or tone to the overall film, it overwhelms and becomes the point. While the rest of the examples I could site aren't as outrageous and obviously defined as a gigantic red rectangle, their effect is exactly the same. I tried going with that principle, to view it as an exercise rather than a narrative, but I found I just didn't care. Maybe I'll grow fonder of it somewhere down the line with repeated viewings and time to digest it all, but I doubt it.

Anyone bored with not only mainstream multiplex fare but also the marketed "Indie" stuff will want to seek this out, perhaps for its shock value alone. And anyone who is interested in Solondz's work won't have wasted a trip, even if you don't particularly like it by the time the final credits role. But everybody else better steer clear.

Grade C+

[Deckard]

Im in the minority here I know, but I really enjoyed Todd Solondz STORYTELLING. (Also enjoyed WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE & HAPPINESS) It was full of passion and contained some of the most scathing satire, full of wit and intention, this really amused me.

Maybe its mean spirited, but youve got to be extreme to make an impression. The irony is ofcourse, reality is just as blurred. Many times the truth is blocked out by society and too much for us to handle. The comment on materializm, explotation and selling out of a society and its people for entertainment is IMO brilliantly handled.

Both halves of the film come together to reveal a mirror of our "shades of grey" society and its value system.

Granted this isnt for everyone as "Holden" said. But I for one found a lot to ponder and be amused by as is this charecter study/exploration of morality and truth unfolded.

[blibblobblib]

I really didnt like this film. I would write more but im tired. I will elaborate more soon.

[Piddzilla]

I haven't seen Welcome to the Dollhouse but I thought Storytelling was better than Happiness. Even though Happiness is labelled a "drama" I think it is more of a ironic dark comedy. I didn't realize this the first time I saw it but the second and third time I did, and I find it a bit annoying that Solondz didn't treat the story and the characters with more seriousness - even though I still think it is a good film.

Storytelling on the other hand is more honest and daring, at least in the second Nonfiction part, in its attempts to tell a story in all seriousness. The first Fiction part is a bit more like Happiness with almost caricature-like characters, but it serves the film well since this first part is called Fiction. At first I thought the Fiction and Nonfiction business was referring to the film itself, but I soon realized that it was aiming at what goes on in the two seperated but in a way connected stories. In the Fiction part a young woman writes a shortstory and since it is a shortstory (i.e. fiction) everybody assumes that she has made it all up when it is in fact a true story. In the Nonfiction part a man is making a documentary about a kid that doesn't give a damn, and since it is a documentary (i.e. nonfiction) everybody assumes that it is the truth that he is telling, when it is in fact far from what is going on in reality. A massive distortion of truth.

The red rectangles Holden is talking about I didn't see anything of in the copy I rented, and I am glad to know that I saw the film as Solondz wanted it to be. Yes, I think the director is making a point when he is doing like that with the rectangles, even though I haven't seen it myself. I know that Solondz's production company Good Machine had a lot of beef with the MPAA when they were going to release Happiness and I guess Solondz is just getting sick and tired of them. Maybe he wanted to address the absurdity of today's censorship and the fact that you are dependent on a "friendly" MPAA to sell your film and wanted to alert the audience by "ruining" their experience of that scene.

The sex scene, that was provocative but not sensational, was brilliant if you ask me. It was Solondz using his ironic side but without taking it to absurdities. The young white woman told herself "Don't be racist, don't be racist" or something like that in the bathroom when she saw those photographs. But then it turned out that her black teacher wanted her to act racist after all.

Anyway, I think it was refreshing to see that Solondz this time wanted to tell a story without the occasionally tiring irony that permeates Happiness. Storytelling is cynical, yes, but in a serious way rather than in a ironic way.

I thought the film was flawless up to the part where the youngest son in the family hypnotized his dad, played by John Goodman (nice job, casting department). This immediately threw a "Happiness-like" irony and ridicule over the film for a moment, and while I think it was a bit annoying you can turn it around and see it as a way for Solondz to play with the Fiction/Nonfiction theme. He takes it to another level. The film, Storytelling, is fiction but the second part of it is called Nonfiction while this event (the hypnosis) is arguably a fictious feature within the non-fictious part. Or is it perhaps only taking place in the documentary that this guy is making in the movie? In any case, it is a perfect, but puzzling, example of meta-film: film about film.

Unlike Holden I think the film had situations that worked on both an emotional as well as intellectual level. I could relate to the communication breakdown around the dinner table, even if it didn't look exactly like that in my home. And the feeling of not belonging anywhere but really not caring that Scooby felt, I felt that was true. While Happiness dealt with extreme persons in somewhat extreme situations but still managed to win our sympathies over for these characters anyway, Storytelling deals with more ordinary people and situations, people like "us", and what happens when these people are thrown into not so ordinary situations because of various reasons. This is why Storytelling went under my skin in a way that Happiness never did.

One thing that I thought was not very successful in the film was how it dealt with the story about Consuelo, the mexican maid. I got the impression that Solondz kind of ruined a brilliantly subtle but crystal clear social criticism by bringing in too much sentimentalism into the depiction of her. Again, this only rendered a ironic and satirical feel rather than a realistic.

I don't usually grade films but I think it was very good, even great, but not perfect. I think Todd Solondz is something as unique as a filmmaker with a style and vision of his own and this film shows why I think he should have been on that Top 40 List that Silver posted. I think he is at his best when he dares to be serious but that said I don't think he should completely stop bringing deep dark humour and irony into his stories. I just think he should "choose wisely", as the Grail Knight would have put it.

I am really looking forward to his next film, Palindromes, and I have to see Welcome to the Dollhouse in a near future.