Friday, 05/13/05

'Palindromes' paints a depressing picture

Todd Solondz's films aim for the discomfort zone. Palindromes, which addresses teen pregnancy, abortion and pedophilia, scores a direct hit.

As in Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, Solondz once again is consumed with adolescent anomie and angst. Following in the untied sneakers of those two films, in Palindromes, kids are unformed creatures distorted by sneering peers and predatory adults — including their own parents and guardians.

Solondz frames his story as a fairy tale, grimmer than Grimm, which begins with a funeral and ends with the death of hope. Those who have seen Dollhouse will recognize the name of the deceased: Dawn Wiener, the resolutely ordinary suburban New Jersey seventh grader who endured sex and death threats.

Seems Dawn took her own life, and the lesson derived by her 8-year-old cousin, Aviva (played by eight actresses of various races and ages), is to have as many children as possible so she will always have someone to love.

When Aviva's mother (Ellen Barkin) hears this, she thinks it's a healthy response to grief. Cut to five years later when Aviva intentionally gets pregnant and Mom gets hysterical, even as Solondz's film remains as determinedly affectless and awkward as the zombie-eyed, whispery-voiced parade of Avivas.

Set in generic North Jersey, Palindromes lurches with its heroine from liberal Jewish enclave to evangelical Christian retreat.

Because I admire Solondz as a filmmaker, I struggled to make sense of Aviva's odyssey from the biological family that believes it best that children shouldn't have children, to the adoptive family that believes it best that all fetuses should be brought to term. The film ridicules both extremes.

On the evidence of Palindromes, the most misanthropic, depressing, hopeless film in memory, I'd hazard that for Solondz, childhood is a problem without a solution.