"Grade: A- ...A movie that demands to be see because it's like nothing you've seen before." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment WeeklyPalindromes is a fable of innocence: 13-year old Aviva Victor wants to be a mom. She does all that she can to make this happen and comes very close to succeeding, but in the end, her plan is thwarted by her sensible parents (Ellen Barkin and Richard Masur). So she runs away, still determined to get pregnant one way or another, but instead finds herself lost in another world, a less sensible one, perhaps, but one pregnant itself with all sorts of strange possibility. Like so many trips, this one is round-trip, and it's hard to say in the end if she can ever be quite the same again, or she can ever be anything but the same again. Palindromes features an all-star supporting cast including Debra Monk and Stephen Adly Guirgis. The startling Jennifer Jason Leigh, along with seven other different and equally brilliant risk-taking actors of different ages, races, sex and size, plays the young heroine. Acclaimed writer/director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling) once again presents a film of moral complexity, and while this may be his most political and philosophical film yet, it is, in many ways, his most tender.
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Writer/director Todd Solondz has no patience for formulas or safe choices. Most filmmakers, after making a movie as commercially unsuccessful and critically slammed as the underrated Storytelling, would strive to broaden their appeal. Solondz, instead, made Palindromes, a movie about a troubled young girl named Aviva whose only goal in life is to have children--a goal that leads her through abortion, religious extremism, pedophilia, and more. But for many viewers, the plot isn't as off-putting as the casting: Over the course of the movie, Aviva is played by eight very different actresses (including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rush). Like Solondz's other movies (including Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness), Palindromes initially seems emotionally brutal and absurd, but gradually grows engaging and even moving, albeit in strange and unexpected ways. Palindromes is given an extra boost by a hypnotic, emotionally unleashed performance by Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy, Drop Dead Gorgeous) as Aviva's mother. --Bret Fetzer
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With PALINDROMES, fiercely independent writer-director Todd Solondz (HAPPINESS, STORYTELLING) places the topic of abortion under his scathing microscope. This time around, Solondz takes an even more daring approach by casting seven different actors to play the film's lead role. Aviva Victor is the young New Jersey cousin of the recently deceased Dawn Wiener (the heroine from Solondz's Sundance-winning WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE). Living under the watchful eye of her overprotective parents Joyce (Ellen Barkin) and Steve (Richard Masur), Aviva dreams of the day when she will be able to call herself a mother--a wish that is prematurely granted after an adolescent tryst. Unfortunately, her parents will not allow her to have the baby under any circumstances, which causes Aviva to run away from home. On the road, she falls for a lonely trucker (Stephen Adly Guirgis) and winds up at the home of the ultra-evangelical Mama Sunshine (Debra Monk), who cares for a wide variety of disabled children. But when the trucker reappears and it becomes quite clear that the bond he shares with Aviva is not just some perverted fantasy, the relationship builds to its inevitably tragic conclusion. Solondz's biting satire is a bold statement in support of a mother's right to choose, but it also takes a surprisingly humane approach to those on the other side of the argument. Featuring standout performances by Barkin, Monk, and Guirgis, PALINDROMES makes a bold, powerful statement.
This film screened at the 2005 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
This film was included in the 42nd New York Film Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
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