E-Mail This Article to a Friend PALINDROMES

Todd Solondz, the provocateur of familial dysfunction who wowed audiences with Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and Happiness (1998), began to stray off track with Storytelling (2001) and has now, with this depraved tale about a young girl trying to find herself in a brutal world, finally lost it. Aviva, whose name is a palindrome, is a cousin of Dollhouse’s heroine, Dawn Wiener, who here commits suicide. But Solondz’s smug chicanery doesn’t end with that. Seven actors of varying race, age, and gender (including Sharon Wilkins, an obese African-American, and a demure Jennifer Jason Leigh) play Aviva. And the cruel ride takes the 13-year-old from her storybook home (a droll Ellen Barkin as her mom) to an abortion clinic (to get one) to a funny farm of Christian devotees and an anti-abortionist with a mission. The plot, like a palindrome, keeps folding back on itself, even provocatively at turns, but Solondz’s grotesque carnival of silent misery is still a self-aggrandizing bore. (100 minutes)