The Times bfi
London Film Festival 2004

Palindromes
Todd Solondz

Alan Docherty

Todd Solondz is a clever writer and a smart director. Palindromes made me laugh out loud half a dozen times. He has a canny eye for the frailties of humankind and the absurdities of life. Yet his films are inhabited, almost entirely, by people who are naïve, stupid, vulgar, violent or homicidal. Palindromes marks another triumphant effort by Solondz to drive his audience to disgust.

Palindromes follows twelve-year-old Aviva in her troubled life. Anyone familiar with Solondz's previous works won't be surprised that her parents are controlling and manipulative, that most of the men in the film can't wait to stick their dick in Aviva and that the syrupy-sweet Christian family that befriends her has a dark secret. The only person who tries to step up and help Aviva is turned into a pariah.

If that isn't enough to put viewers off, there is always the convoluted casting. Aviva is played by eight different people; two women, five girls and one boy. In doing this Solondz worried: 'My fear was that it would come across as too much of an intellectual exercise, a show-off but pointless trick, and alienate the audience.' Which is exactly how it does come across.

What is so frustrating about Palindromes is not so much its self-destructiveness, but that Solondz could do something much better. He may be striving to produce something shocking but it comes across as unremitting awfulness.

I'm in favour of perversion and criminality as much as the next person but what irks about Palindromes is the trail of utter hopelessness it leaves. If only Solondz would demonstrate a little more faith in humanity in his films, then we might come back asking for more.

In the meantime, the effect of watching Palindromes is to yearn for a feel-good movie or teen-comedy. In fact, any film that doesn't involve a bible-bashing, child-abusing, child-killing anti-abortionist.