Customer Reviews

Storytelling

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Todd Solondz's funny and controversial films examine sordid suburbia. They are witty, satirical stories but also unflinching in their use of controversial subjects like rape, pedophilia and other "uncomfortable" subjects that most mainstream films would never have the nerve to address, much less use in a comedic context. So, you either love his films or hate them (as the other reviews here will attest.) I happen to love his films.

It might be best to watch his previous film, "Happiness", before watching "Storytelling" as "Storytelling" seems (to me) to be the film maker's personal response to the criticisms that his other films have elicited. "Storytelling" is composed of two, separate stories titled "Fiction" and "Non Fiction". "Non Fiction" features a documentary film maker (clearly representing Solondz)who's a downtrodden geek, accused of exploiting his subjects.

His films make you laugh but also uncomfortable about laughing. I think he's an exciting voice in American cinema, far removed from the formulated drek that's cranked out by the studios. Highly recommended!

Todd Solondz's `Welcome to the Dollhouse' showed comic/absurd promise; his masturbation scene in `Happiness' overstepped the boundary of film taste but got everyone's attention. While I didn't enjoy "Storytelling" as much as I did the Director's two previous films, "Happiness" and "Welcome to The Dollhouse," Solondz continues to amaze with his depictions of just how awkward true life really is. As always, he masterfully shows the oft times tactless, cynical, transparent motivations of everyday suburban life and combines them with outrageous situations, giving a humorous view into the myriad of interesting quirky characters he creates. As with Happiness, Storytelling has no background characters. Each character gets fully explored in a way that no matter how familiar or foreign a specific character's behavior might be to you, you can't help but understand their motivations. Solondz can develop over 10 characters in 88 minutes while most conventional Hollywood films fail to portray just one in any given 3 hour "epic".

Selma Blair and Leo Fitzpatrick give incredible performances in the first segment of this film titled "Fiction". John Goodman is at his best here in the film's second segment "Non-fiction", not to mention it was a good to see Julie Haggerty in it.

One of the film's most honest moments (and there are MANY) comes in the beginning of the Non-Fiction segment, during a phone call Paul Giamatti gives to a female classmate he hadn't spoken to since high school. While hilarious, I couldn't help but feel bad for his character, which gets fleshed out in the almost confessional tone of the conversation (which of course, he blunders).

I don't want to dig far into the plot because the elements of shock and surprise that are Solondz bread and butter should only be revealed by others, suffice it to say I recommend this movie very highly. I look forward to anything this director does.

I can't believe people are giving this film 1 star. Storytelling is one of the best films I've seen in a while. Yes it's disturbing -- yes it's at times shocking -- and yes maybe even a scene or two were a bit unnecessary, but director Todd Solondz is brave enough to take that extra step to keep the viewer engaged by showing them the unexpected. This movie is unlike anything you'll ever see - a "Fiction" and "Nonfiction" story put together in one movie, both being able to capture your attention. Before you pass on this movie based on all the 1-star reviews, give it a chance. You may just enjoy this very different film.

Todd Solodnz is not everyone's cup of tea. To enjoy his films, one must have a jet-black sense of humor and be comfortable with having your buttons pushed. He's definitely an acquired taste, but I love his movies. And, this one is no exception. It reminded me of Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry" in that it seems to be Solondz's response to his crticis. Indeed, it's a good film, but it's even better if you've already seen his other films ("Welcome to the Dollhouse," "Fear, Anxiety, & Depression," and "Happiness"). Solodnz dwells on subjects that most people would rather pretend don't exist (oh, but they do, they do). He makes you squirm and think and usually laugh at what you're seeing even though you may feel guilty about it afterwards. But, that's the point of a Todd Solondz film - anyone seeking lighthearted escapist fare will run screaming from the exits. But, for those who can "take it" and appreciate something different and intelligent, there are many rewards to be found. "Storytelling" may be a tad weaker than "Welcome" & "Happiness" (though miles above "Fear"), but it still succeeds wonderfully. I can't get this film out of my mind. It's essentially an examination of where the line between valid art and exploitation lies, of where the search for truth ends and a carnival geek show begins. And, it's a doozy. The MPAA objected to one particular scene in the first segment, "Fiction," causing Solondz to obscure the offending image with a bright, incongruous red rectangle rather than cut it (the scene in question is integral to the story). Now, that one can see the scene uncensored on this DVD, it provides even more proof that the MPAA is out of control (the scene is really no more explicit than anything to be found in, say, "Original Sin"). It's really the ideals and concepts Todd examines which make the MPAA uncomfortable, but all they can do is attack scenes with nudity and clearly simulated sex. Ridiculous, really. Some may find the subject matter and sense of humor repugnant, but this is one of the better films I've seen recently.

Storytelling is a typical Todd Solondz fare. Solondz is incredibly deft at placing an unflinching eye on the dark, disturbing undercurrents of everyday life that we all experience yet only discuss in therapy sessions. Humor in disturbing situations; misfits, outcasts and misunderstood individuals and a keen, satirical sense of suburban life abound throughout as in every Solondz film. However, if you're expecting 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' or 'Happiness' then Storytelling will disappoint. It falls short at reaching the highs of past films, yet still maintains that familiar edge.

Storytelling's only problem is its sense of balance. Divided into two parts, Fiction and NonFiction, the Fiction half lasts about 20 minutes. A strange story of a girl who has a humiliating sexual encounter with her Black creative writing teacher that she later writes about. The NonFiction half lasts well over an hour, a tense account of the "perfect" suburban family slowly and tragically disintegrating in front a documentary camera crew.

The balance should have been attained through either a sense of continuity between the stories or, as another reviewer mentioned, at least one or two more vignettes. When the credits rolled I felt disappointed that there wasn't at least one more tale to tell. In in any case, Storytelling is Solondz in top form. Proof postive that Solondz is an excellent storyteller.

Although this third film by Todd Solondz is not as good as "Welcome To The Dollhouse" or "Happiness", it still smacks of satirical cynicism. Inexplicably split into two films ('Fiction', 'Non-fiction'), we are first presented with a twenty minute film about community college level 'writing', in which, a young woman has a confrontational and sexual sparring with the black, 'mandingo' teacher. It's all meant to be a comment on hypocritical racists in education. It culminates in an outrageous sex encounter that is literally 'blocked' by a large red rectangle (taboo emphasis). It's moderately entertaining.

The second part of the film is more complex. Without exposing too much of the plot, it involves (as "Happiness" did) classism, racism, sexism, oh hell, any 'ism' you could imagine. But it works. It is simply a story of an upper middle class American family with the 2.5 kids and the proper suburban parents with a perfect son, the 'imperfect' son and the 'baby'. Kudos to John Goodman and Julie Haggerdy for participating in this movie. They bring life and legitimacy to their roles. Solondz filmed this well before "reality TV" was popular, and that is the premise. While the imperfect son is being secretly filmed for a documentary, the family struggles through it's own unusually tragic existence (the youngest of the three sons is the 'Brady Bunch brat' we always thought we wanted to see as evil). Needless to say, Solondz produces many shocks and surprises along the way. The trip is wildly entertaining, but the finale may leave the viewer distraught. Not that the story is poorly conceived or arranged, but simply that the ending is horribly, terribly depressing. It still good enough to recommend. I consider that a rare accomplishment for any film-maker.

The mode of portraying a tale is in focus in Storytelling through two different stories that are disconnected, yet associated to one another, as one deals with the fictional and the other the non-fictional. In the first part, Fiction, Vi (Selma Blair) is in a relationship with Marcus (Leo Fitzpatrick) who suffers from cerebral palsy and both are attending the same university. Vi and Marcus are currently enrolled in the same creative writing class where the students scrutinize each other's writing. Fiction exposes how personal experiences are turned into writing, which is callously slaughtered by judgmental readers as they their own set of values to the cerebral playing field of literature.

The second part of Storytelling, Non-fiction, illiterates the reality of the world as Scooby Livingston (Mark Webber) perceives it. Scooby lives in a upper-class bubble protected by his ruling father, Marty (John Goodman), where Scooby is constantly asked, "what are you going to do with your life?" This endless questioning of Scooby's future seems to have been stressful for him as he has sunk into a zombie-like state. Scooby escapes reality through smoking pot or chewing down a couple of mushrooms where he flees into dreams of working as a co-host with David Letterman. The day when a shoe salesman, who aspires to make film, visits Scooby's high school in order to make a documentary about the process of entering college Scooby believes that this is his chance to make connections in the world of media. However, when the documentary comes along it begins to depict the dream-like world in which Scooby lives in.

Storytelling is a clever film that displays the symbiosis between the audience and the storyteller, which is meticulously directed by Solondz. Solondz depicts the power of the audience to choose what to believe and what to disregard if it is not portrayed in an manner that the audience can accept. In addition, Solondz offers a notion of how the power of storytelling can sway an audience's convictions in a chosen direction if carefully planned. In a sense Storytelling is a philosophical film in regards to film and film making, which can be derived from the economics, politics, and the arts. Yet, the philosophical debate of Storytelling is deep beneath the surface as the audience must use a dialectic approach in order to reach it. Nonetheless, Storytelling offers a terrific cinematic experience as it offers the audience to choose whether to sink into thought or merely enjoy the ride.

In "Storytelling", Todd Solondz wields his darkly hysterical wit against the art of narrative. In two stories - a shorter one ("Fiction")starring Selma Blair as a ruthlessly abused college-writing student, and a longer one ("Non-Fiction") featuring an extra-shlubby Paul Giamatti as a would-be documentarian. Giamatti and Blair play writers lacking any control over their stories or even any basic idea of how to tell their stories.

In "Fiction", Blair is Vi, a middling aspiring writer in a college writing workshop populated partly by other middling aspiring writers, and partly by mercilessly efficient critics who pull apart the stories of others, and their authors as well. Told that she's got little talent, Vi commits herself to turn her life into a story, then write about it. It's an interesting story, but a short one - Vi is too insubstantial a character to withstand the Solondz-treatment, and once the point is made, there's little left of her to survive. (Even if her story was true, her professor intones, once it's on paper, it's fiction; that's the cope de grace against her - following a raft of utterly destructive reviews by fellow students that must be heard to be believed.)

In "Non-fiction" Giamatti tries to document...well he's not sure. A serial failure (acting, law school, writing), Giamatti decides to try documentary-movie making - but he's only got a vague idea of what he can and wants to do, and he's too weak-willed to keep his subjects from commandeering his movie. Giamatti's focus is "Scooby" Livingston, a very familiar Solondz-type (middle child of a comfortably middle-class modern-Jewish family). Scoob is utterly alienated - he's undirected, unambitious (he wants to be Conan O'brien's sidekick) sexually conflicted, and stuck between two brothers ever more in control than he is. As in "Fiction", Giamatti is paired up with a narrative conscious - a producer better able to chart the direction of Giamatti's film than Giamatti can. There are no stand-out performances, because Solondz integrates his characters like the complex components of a WMD - Giamatti & his producer, Vi & her professor(Robert Wisdom), Scooby's homophobic and domestic autocrat father (John Goodman) and his sons.

Both stories excel at dissecting the narrative process and revealing the flaws of the failed creators, and they're both quite funny - nobody can do bittersweet & funny at the same time like Solondz. This may be the single cruelest film that you'll ever laugh your head off watching.

Storytelling is another highly enjoyable, if typically disturbing work from the New York director Todd Solondz. His films, from his first breakthrough `Welcome to the Dollhouse' to the recent `Palindromes', have all been thoughtful and controversial dark comedies. In my view, the comedic moments have become a little scarcer and less funny in his last two films (this one and Pallindromes), but the philosophical ruminations have been taken to another level. Here, as in Pallindromes, the director explores in a highly original way, the seemingly inescapable but ultimately cruel and futile need of individuals to impose artificial narrative structure on the lives of themselves and others. As the abusive black tutor in the first of the film's two `stories' puts it : `Our stories run better when they have a beginning, a middle and an end, but as soon as we try to frame them in words and meanings we must admit that they become fiction'.

Solondz's world is a dark one, a world in which all human relationships are abusive Sartrean power struggles, where even our very identities are attempts to fix `the other' into a false straitjacket in order to increase our own power to define and control the world. These battles are fought often enough through primitive means of physical or sexual abuse, but they are always ultimately decided by the more sophisticated armouries of words, labels and meanings. His films provoke and unsettle above all because he refuses to fix himself to any one moral interpretation or `camp', right or left, and even dares to challenge the left's sanctity of the victim/abuser relationship. Solondz has been criticised for raising the unspeakably ugly head of paedophilia above the dinner party discussion table yet here he explores the female `converse' of negrophilia in a similarly stark and honest manner. The black male tutor at the creative writing school has a penchant for sexually degrading his young white female students. We are shown, however, that he is only in a position to exploit his perversion because those same women (like all the white females in the school) sexually objectify and fetishise a racist and harmful stereotype of the Afro-american male as a violent brute with a huge penis. That the holding back of the black American male in contemporary society is no longer the result of the evil racism of the white American male, but in fact lies now more in the grotesque sexual appetites and fetishes of American women is a typically bitter pill for the left leaning cinema goer to be asked to swallow. But for this hugely talented film director, nothing should be black and white and any attempt to pretend otherwise is mere storytelling.

"Storytelling," a film written and directed by Todd Solondz, is actually made up of a pair of stories combined into a single work. The first, entitled "Fiction," is the shorter and lesser in quality of the two, telling the tale of a waiflike young college student who, tired of relationships that seem to go nowhere, finds herself having a kinky, almost racist sexual encounter with her black writing professor, then using the experience as source material for one of her amateur stories. Selma Blair does a beautiful job in the role of Vi, a quiet, taciturn girl who finds herself drawn to an experience she quickly comes to regret. Even though she is a "willing partner" in what happens to her, she also comes to see the exploitative nature of the event. When she attempts to confront the professor by reading her tale in the writers' workshop session he is hosting, she discovers that few of the other writers are able to see the story for what it is and dismiss it as trite, racist and exploitative fiction. That seems to be the theme of this first episode - that everything becomes fiction once it is committed to paper - but because the episode itself is so short, it somehow feels underdeveloped and incomplete. Despite the excellence performances and the assuredness of the direction, this opening section comes across more as a clever conceit than as a fully developed work in its own right.

The second story, which is almost twice as long as the first, creates much more of an impact, due largely to the fact that it gives itself more time for the development of character, milieu and theme. In this tale, entitled, not surprisingly, "Nonfiction," Solondz presents us with a view of an upper middle class suburban family caught in major crisis. The story focuses on young Scooby Livingston, a high school senior so devoid of ambition, drive and motivation, that he is literally drifting through life, indifferent to family, school, peers, anything but his pie-in-the-sky dream of becoming a talk show host like Conan O'Brien (who makes a fun cameo appearance in the film). Scooby's family resides in one of those perfectly manicured suburban residences replete with a maid from Central America whom the family members either ignore or treat with hurtful disdain (the mean-spirited action of the youngest son in this regard provides one of the truly disturbing, haunting moments of the film). Solondz does a beautiful job conveying the quiet desperation that defines so many lives lived behind such suburban facades. Scooby's parents are at a loss to understand why their sterile home environment fails to elicit the responses they think it should from their oldest son. Paul Giamatti plays Toby Oxman, a wannabe documentary filmmaker who decides to make a movie about Scooby's attempts to get into college. Toby is a man whose life has not turned out the way he had imagined it would. Unmarried, living with a roommate, and working as a clerk at a local shoe store, Toby latches onto the Livingston family as his ticket to fame and fortune. By the end of the film, Toby has gotten more than he bargained for as the family weathers some amazing crises and even provides him with the perfect "finale" for his nearly completed work.

"Nonfiction" takes a number of surprising turns, not all of which are entirely convincing or credible, but the film is more interesting for its characterizations and milieu than for its plotting. Scooby is representative of many of today's apathetic young people, cut off from both his own emotions and the emotions of those around him. Young Mark Webber captures Scooby's passive, glassy-eyed exterior perfectly. Equally impressive are John Goodman and Julie Haggerty as Scooby's well-meaning but hopelessly ineffective parents, who simply can't understand why their son fails to share any of their basic values. Jonathan Osser, as Scooby's youngest brother, Mikey, is a revelation, a smart kid who seems, on the surface, to be warm and caring, but who can, with cold calculation, destroy another human being without a moment's regret or hesitation.

As a director, Solondz creates an atmosphere and a world that is raw, stark and sterile, utterly drained of happiness and joy. In fact, I don't think a single character ever smiles in the course of either of the two stories (with the exception of Scooby and, of course, Conan, in the former's fantasy sequences). These are people sealed off from the possibility of happiness, who are just going through the motions because the only other alternative is death. As such, the film is, in many ways, a disturbing and depressing experience, but one that offers some valuable insights into human nature. You may not want to live in the world Solondz is showing us, but you may want to visit it for a short time to perhaps see how much better your own life is.