Storytelling Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)February 11th, 2002
STORYTELLING
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'Fiction' recounts the tale of a college writing class led by a manipulatively cruel Pulitzer Prize winning author while 'Non-Fiction' showcases the attempts of an amateur documentarian to follow a student through the college application process with an equally inept subject in writer/director Todd Solondz' "Storytelling."
Todd Solondz' film, "Welcome to the Dollhouse," was a near masterpiece of squirm-inducing self recognition while his follow up, "Happiness" seemed to delight more in making its audience uncomfortable than exploring what made its characters tick (with the exception of its strong pedophile subplot). With his latest, "Storytelling," Solondz appears to have fallen, over the edge into pretentious, self-referential irony. Solondz may well be the only one laughing at this own joke.
In 'Fiction,' the shorter and weaker of the two segments, Selma Blair is Vi, a pink haired idiot who sports pro-Black causes on her oversize tee shirts and a chic attitude in her choice of lover, Marcus (Leo Fitzpatrick, "Kids"), a fellow writing student with cerebral palsy. Their teacher, Mr. Scott (Robert Wisdom, "Mighty Joe Young"), remains silent after a student reading, until his rumored lover, Catherine (Aleksa Palladino, "Manny & Lo"), weighs in with caustic commentary which she negates ending by 'But what do I know?' This allows Scott to step in and agree with her while retaining the upper hand. When Vi finds Scott in her barroom hangout, she inexplicably comes on to him, only to be sexually abused with Scott demanding she yell racial slurs.
While there is minimal humor to be found in Vi's self delusion, it comes across as a cheap shot. Solondz counters every possible objection to his own story with the commentary of the other writing students, thereby attempting
to have his cake and eat it too. The degrading sex scene, parts of which would have earned the film an NC-17 rating, is covered by Solondz with a much-publicized large red box, ostensibly allowing the audience 'to see what it couldn't see'. This nose thumbing at the ratings system is a mere ploy for self promotion, as the scene would have relayed all it needed had the dialogue been presented over the footage which was allowed.
in 'Non-Fiction,' Paul Giamatti ("Big Fat Liar") stands in for the director as Toby Oxman, a loser who's drifted from job to job hoping circumstance would drop his lucky break into his lap. His subject Scooby (Mark Weber, "Animal Factory") is his counterpart, an aspiring talk show host depending on non-existent connections rather than anything resembling effort on his part to provide his career. He hates his family, which includes a blustering, cliche spouting dad (John Goodman), a mom (Julie Hagerty, "Airplane") who wears her Jewishness as her identify, his popular jock brother Brady (Noah Fleiss, "Joe the King") and his smart, ignored, psychopathic little brother Mikey (Jonathan Osser, "Max Keeble's Big Move"). Is Solondz trying to reference American Pop culture here with references to "Scooby Doo," "The Brady Bunch" and those Life cereal commercials? Downtrodden housekeeper Consuelo (Lupi Ontiveros, "Chuck & Buck") is treated as an object by all but Mikey, who tortures her with seemingly innocent, but cruelly self-serving questions.
Once again, Solondz anticipates criticism via Tobey's editor (Franke Potente, "Run Lola Run"), who believes he feels hatefully superior to the people he's documenting. While there are some funny moments, such as Scooby pushing all his father's buttons by using logic and his mother's inane statements to conclude that he wouldn't have been born if it hadn't been for Hitler, or Tobey highlighting his complete lack of originality in footage that's an "American Beauty" parody featuring a straw wrapper, the overall impact of the film is bored annoyance. For the first time, I found a filmmaker's choice to leave a shot of the World Trade Center *in* his film in poor taste. Like that red box, it feels self congratulatory.
"Storytelling" is proof that Solondz has wrung his own formula dry.
D+
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