Storytelling
***1/2
Cinema Releases - November 30, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. 87
minutes. Written and directed by Todd Solondz. Starring Selma Blair, Leo
Fitzpatrick, Robert Wisdom, Paul Giamatti, Mark Webber, John Goodman, Julie
Hagerty, Franka Potente.
"Storytelling" begins with the image
of the physically perfect Selma Blair making love with a sufferer of multiple
sclerosis. When they're finished, we see them talk; she is controlled and
gentle, while he has fury and paranoia.
These arresting contrasts are an absolutely
appropriate way to begin a Todd Solondz movie. The director is fascinated
by strange situations of any kind. His last picture, "Happiness", included
a plot thread whereby a suburban father became besotted by his son's best
friend, and devised a scheme to feed him sandwiches that would put him to
sleep so that he could be raped.
I wasn't crazy about "Happiness", and I liked
but not loved "Welcome to the Dollhouse", Solondz's 1996 movie about a bullied
young girl. I might just revisit them. Having seen "Storytelling", I think
I finally get it. I felt something this time.
"Storytelling" is broken down into two forty-minute
sections -- 'Fiction' and 'Non-fiction'. The first one involves a university
writing group in which the tutor, a mercilessly frank Pulitzer Prize-winner,
never gives Blair's stories a break. This fascinates at the same time as
frustrating her, and she gets too interested in the guy for her own good.
The second section of the movie follows a documentary filmmaker played by
Paul Giammatti, who is clumsily attempting to put together a look at New
Jersey teenagers. The only subject he can find for his piece is a dope called
Scooby, whose family is a joke on many levels and whose own personality needs
a couple of hundred years to mature.
Because Solondz is himself telling stories of
storytellers, he uses some of the dialogue to respond to criticisms of his
own work. The members of Blair's writing group tell her that her passages
pretend to be brave while really shying away from implications; she responds
that she's being as real as she can. Giammatti's editor tells him that he's
mocking his subjects; he protests that this isn't his intention, and he cares
for these people.
What's more interesting, though, is how Solondz
must have expended masses of energy devising all the odd situations that
appear in this film, and yet he seems to be letting them be, and allowing
these things to evolve and unfold onscreen. "Storytelling" grabs our attention
with some choice images and lines, and keeps drawing us in, as it develops
its skilful fusion of the straightforwardly dramatic, the ludicrous and the
shocking.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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