the audience applauded

Sorry, this movie sucks

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Palindromes is just about the antithesis of anything that is mainstream in cinema. Sure, it has a couple of actors you have may have seen before and even loved - Ellen Barkin and Jennifer Jason Leigh - but this is filmmaking that is out there to ask some stark, provocative questions and challenge its audience about assumptions regarding abortion, women's choice (even if that choice is by a 13 year old, when a mind is not fully formed), and faith. The problem with though with an approach that confronts us is that we need someone to latch on to throughout all of the madness that surrounds the lead character. What do you do when a) the person we see the rest of this world through is a 13 year old girl obsessed with getting pregnant and having a baby, and b) this girl is played by nine different actresses? In short, the movie didn't work for me, but I can see why it would for others. It's experimental and dark and dreary but it also has the camp sensibility of a John Waters, just poking a dirty finger and wiping the glass with the graffiti of a man out to say that people who say one thing is exactly one thing should be ashamed. But, for me, whatever messages here are muddled and because Solondz is most concerned really with breaking down the form of a narrative and loses some kind of grip on reality.This is all going through the mind-set of a 13 year old who, I guess, sees herself as different forms at different times. Why does she see herself as a skinny white girl one moment traipsing through the woods and then as a fat black woman the next and then later on Jennifer Jason Leigh? The latter part I almost get as it comes near the end of the film when she's been through so much that she's grown a little... maybe, but not really. What's the context of her visualizing this? It doesn't necessarily have to be explained exactly of course, and the main inspiration I'd suppose would be Bunuel and That Obscure Object of Desire where the filmmaker cast two women to play one love interest. Yet while that was a little more random as to which woman would come along in whatever scene, it had more to do with how uncertain the male protagonist saw here. Here, there's not quite as much rhyme or reason to it - why would she be a big black woman vs her younger white self or a variation on that or with red hair? And yet still there's some kind of structure that Solondz is still imposing with the title cards of names (maybe like those 'Chapter' headings that are hit or miss on von Trier movies or something).But I shouldn't compare too much to other directors since Solondz only makes Solondz movies, and in this case he made one where the messages trump having compelling characters. In the three movies that really put him on the map - Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling - there's some "touchy" issues and real challenges to the viewer when it comes to how you empathize with the characters, but there's more going on in how they're shown and how they relate to others. What do we know about Aviva aside from her pregnancy wish, and the sort of vague, overwrought cloud of depression hanging over her when she after her abortion (or maybe before)? Well, not much really, at all. It's less about having compelling characters here than having a compelling STATEMENT to make, about freedom of choice or faith or pedophilia or incest or... it's all over the place; what should I make of that Christian group that Aviva-cum-Henrietta comes to (the latter name for her unborn child), the mostly retarded children who have to sing about saving the un-born and the possible shady politics behind closed doors? I don't think Solondz is poking fun at the retarded, I certainly wouldn't criticize that, but there is this feeling in those scenes of having to draw out the abortion argument using, well, outcasts. This might be all well and good if there's more time to develop them, or if he saw these characters through to the end. But Aviva/Henrietta runs off once again and goes back to her, uh, "lover" who drives a truck, and then things go crazier from there. Ultimately what should I take away from the anti-abortionists? That they're easily manipulated? That there should be some, uh, empathy? If you're pro-life it comes off as cartoonish (see that breakfast scene with everyone laughing on cue at the table), and if you're pro-choice it's... a farce? Palindromes has certain shots and images that keep one's attention, like the blurred drama happening in ellipses as she is getting the abortion, or in a moment of sexual awakening (if it is that, and if it is it's certainly disturbing as hell, which is fine) when the various Avivas blur from one to another. I can see this working for others and I can see it working not at all - it's a piece of confrontational art that wants to draw out the viewer into a debate of some kind. Or maybe it's simply a character study of a girl caught up in that terrible time of being 13 (not unlike Dollhouse, and this is sort of in the world of that movie by the way as Dawn Weiner is dead to begin with). For me it didn't really work as comedy - there are a few scattered laughs, but even when they come it feels ugly, by Solondz standards I mean - and as a drama it's more like a series of short plays or vignettes that don't quite tie together.

I rarely comment on movies on IMDb but there are a few that I remember for all the wrong reasons. When I see they have a really high star rating I feel compelled to weigh in. I usually agree with IMDb's assessment (with the exception of "bad" horror films which I enjoy). The movie starts out with an interesting premise but it is a bit gratuitous and I would say a bit exploitative of the 13 year old character in this movie. It almost struck me as a film that was written by a pedophile. This movie was depressing and depicted a heck of a lot of depravity and even pedophilia. I love film noir, love gritty grindhouse films and stuff like that. This is VERY different from that. I got itchy watching it and as a parent, I was revolted with the sexual depiction of the young girl in this. I understand reality in films but this was just going too far to be enjoyable in my opinion. I was not entertained.

I'd like to comment on some aspects of the movie that I have not yet found anyone commenting on.While this movie is ostensibly from the perspective of a pre-teen girl who wants to be pregnant, the content of the film shows less of the perspective of a pre-teen, or any realities of life as a pre-teen in middle America, as it seems to assert, and more about the filmmaker's world view and life experience.I'll admit, this is the first film by Solondz that I've seen, and I hope to not watch any more, so my depth of understanding of him as a filmmaker is shallow.The film features three different sex scenes, all involving the 12 year old Aviva/Henrietta, the protagonist of the film. As you may have surmised from other reviews of this film, Aviva/Henrietta is played by 8 different actresses/actors in the course of the film. Each sex scene shows Aviva laying flat on her back, being "done to", absolutely emotionless and reactionless. The final sex scene takes it a step further and cycles through many of the actresses who played Aviva throughout the film, each of them with the exact same expressionless face. From my take on the film, each of these encounters were encounters that Aviva desired and maybe even initiated, including the one with the adult trucker with whom she was hitchhiking. And yet she was clearly absolutely absent from each of the experiences. The final sex scene with multiple actresses with the same expressionlessness seemed hugely important to me as insight into the filmmaker himself. I was hit with a sudden sense that this must be the filmmaker's experience: looking down on face after expressionless, void face. As I know nothing about the filmmaker other than this film and the reviews I've read of it, I'm not presuming to accuse him of anything about his life. I am saying that this scene led me to question whether the film was actually his fantasy about what the life and choices and motivations of young girls who he either has had sex with or has fantasized having sex with might be.Interestingly, only one scene clearly alludes to non-consensual sexual contact, and it's none of the sex scenes. When Aviva/Henrietta is at the Christian fundamentalist "Sunshine" house, she overhears the family doctor, who examined her while she was asleep when she first arrived at the house, telling the father of the household that she is a "child whore". To back up his assertion, the doctor hands the father what looks like a whole roll of photographs, presumably with images of Aviva/Henrietta's vagina. The father asks, "You examined her?" The doctor answers affirmatively. And the father looks intently at the photos, saying, "I've never had a slut in my house before." While there is clear hypocrisy in the Sunshine family's rabid pro-life stance which leads the father to hire hit men to kill abortionists, this hypocrisy seems to have been looked over by many reviewers. And what is Aviva's response? She runs away from the family that night, and one may at first believe that she's motivated by fear of violation by staying. But it's soon revealed that her motivation is to go with the hit man hired to kill the abortionist that she was forced to use by her mother because she believes she is in love with the hit man, who was the trucker she had sex with in the motel.This utter lack of fear exhibited by Aviva, not just in this scene, but throughout the film, is totally unbelievable and unrealistic. The film attempts to pull her character through the whole movie on two basic motivations: the desire to be pregnant, coupled with anger/hatred of abortion and her abortionist who foiled her first successful attempt at pregnancy. These motivations are too thin to carry her through the entire movie without any other emotions which would be reasonable given her circumstances. This, again, strengthens my sense that this movie is not about her at all. It's about someone else, likely the filmmaker, wanting this character to be something that is so severely disconnected from reality for his own purposes.

A girl named Aviva (that's apalindrome, hence the title) who is a 13-year-old that really wants toget pregnant, because then she'd never have to be lonely. (Aviva is played by several different actresses, many of which are not 13, which makes things a tad bit confusing.) She gets what she wants, only to have her mom tell her there's no way she can keep her child. The mother forces her to get an abortion, which ends up being botched. While Aviva is half-sedated, she hears that she can never get pregnant again. After the abortion she runs away.She ends up in the truck of a dude who turns out to be a pedophile. They have sex at a hotel. Dude ditches her the next day. She wanders around in a forest and falls asleep, only to be awoken by a little boy. He takes her back to Mama Sunshine's house, where she stays for a few days. Mama Sunshine is a Christian who raises all sorts of kids with problems that no one else seems to want. These kids make money by selling CDs and videos of themselves singing and dancing to songs about Jesus.Guess who lives in a trailer next door? The pedophile. Apparently Papa Sunshine is contracting him to kill an abortion doctor–the same one who did Aviva's abortion! Aviva runs away from the Sunshine's and sleeps on the steps of the trailer until the pedophile agrees to bring her with. He kills the doctor, and the doctor's young daughter accidentally. He ends up being killed by the police in a hotel. Aviva goes home and her parents throw a party.The writer is probably struggling with his own views on abortion. The strong pro-lifers are portrayed as crazy and weird. At the same time, they're loving and accepting of all sorts of children–even children that the pro-choicers might think should've been aborted. Aviva's mother talks about how, if she hadn't had an abortion herself, they wouldn't be able to afford NSync tickets, or cartons of Ben and Jerry's. She also tells Aviva that a deformed child will ruin the rest of her life and rob her of experiences. It seems that Solondz shows the flaws of both sides of the abortion issue. The pedophile theme, however, reduced any value I saw in the movie. What the point was, I'm not sure. That pedophiles are good people? That they can't always be blamed for what they do? The pedophile in this movie doesn't seek out a child to prey on. Aviva just shows up in his truck. He doesn't even try to lure her into agreeing to sex, she wants sex, because she wants pregnancy. At the end, one character says that he's not a pedophile, and Aviva says "Yes, because they love children." Hm. What? So pedophiles just love children so much that they want to have sex with them? Are we supposed to be happy that they love children so much? Sorry that they carry this burden of having to hide and repress that love? Maybe he's trying to show that the girl's liberal parents and the conservative family that takes her in are just as exploitative as the pedophile who has anal sex with her. Forcing a girl to have an abortion is bad. Forcing a girl to repress her sexuality and only showing her love if she adheres to your ultra-conservatives standards is bad too. But I don't think either come anywhere close to anally raping a girl (and in this country, regardless of consent, if the girl is 13 it is rape). I try to view it in different ways, but this movie really seems to stand as an argument for pedophilia. Not that it is a good thing, but perhaps that it isn't any worse than all the other things people to do children. All pro-life folks and probably a good chunk of the pro-choice folks who see this would think it was wrong for Aviva's mother to not allow her to have her child. I guess from there, the argument is, if she can choose whether or not have a child, should she not be able to choose who she has sex with? Even if the person she wants to have sex with his older? At the end of the movie one character talks about how people do not change. If you're depressed when you're ten, you're going to be depressed your whole life. I don't agree with that, but I have heard it said for pedophiles. You like what you like. You don't stop being attracted to children, you just learn not to act on it. Is that what the point of that little "no one changes" rant was? I don't know.Overall I was not a huge fan of this movie. Parts of it were funny. Parts of it were thought-provoking. The palindrome-theme was kind of neat (In order, Aviva is living with her parents and sleeping with a guy her age, running away and being with a pedophile, staying with the Sunshines, running away and being with a pedophile, and living with her parents and sleeping with a guy her age.) I'll admit that. But it's hard to like something that appears to defend pedophiles. And if that wasn't his aim, then I have to think his aim was to be shocking, to get attention, to get people to say "I can't believe he did that." And being shocking for the sake of being shocking isn't something I admire either. It's really just a shortcut to getting attention, a replacement for doing something meaningful.If you've seen Solondz's other movies and liked them, then you might want to see this. If you haven't seen them, I recommend checking them out first before diving into this one. Also, this one is a loose continuation of Welcome to the Dollhouse, so maybe watch them both back-to-back.