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STORYTELLING Send This Review to a Friend
Writer-director Todd Solondz's "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness" demonstrated his ability to shake up audiences. "Storytelling," showcased at the New York Film Festival, expands upon his impulses. The film is in two parts. The first, titled "Fiction" focuses on an African-American college professor who runs a writing class, is merciless in treatment of students and is a sexual predator as well. Some of the dialogue is hilarious in its send-up of classes in which students discuss their writing to various malicious reactions. It also is daring in the way it treats a male student with cerebral palsy. An upsetting explicit sex scene between the professor and a female student has been blocked out by the director, but in an odd way that can elicit a laugh at the absurdity of censorship.
The second part, "Non-Fiction," deals with a would-be independent filmmaker and the family he films as part of a documentary about the high school students, their level of competence and their aspirations or lack of them. It is at once a wicked jibe at the making of independent documentaries and the insipidness of a family, undone by the revenge of a Latino housekeeper for the way she has been treated. The family is Jewish and objections to stereotyping may be raised. But Solondz is consistent in his determination to hold a mirror to things in life that he finds fodder for satire and he certainly does this in "Storytelling" with humor and skill and delightful spoofing of fledgling independent documentary filmmaking.
The casting helps considerably. In "Fiction" Robert Wisdom is the epitome of witty arrogance as he manipulates his students, and Selma Blair, Leo Fitzpactrick and Aleksa Palladino add strength in their portrayals of students caught in his web in different ways. There is a meanness of spirit underlying "Fiction" but it is also funny in it mocking of political correctness.
The same can be said in the view taken of family life in "Non-Fiction," which is also helped by a strong cast, including John Goodman as the overbearing father and Julie Hagerty as his wife, who are persuaded to allow aspiring filmmaker Toby (Paul Giamatti) to make a documentary focusing on their oddball son Scooby (Mark Webber). Lupe Ontiveros delivers a sympathetic performance as Consuelo, the family maid who is treated with casual contempt and wreaks her revenge. There is a mix of cruelty and gallows humor in "Non-Fiction," and the response depends on the level at which audiences can take Solondz's cynical approach. I enjoyed it. A Fine Line Features release.
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