User reviews

Palindromes is a film that is set to shock. The themes – abortion, child abuse, Christian fundamentalism, teenage pregnancy – are red rags generally too much at for TV soap operas, or comedy shows like The Office - yet apart from it's x-rated material, Palindromes has a certain amount in common with both of these genres.

In terms of film-making, it is fairly innovative in technique, although audiences who have tired of director Todd Solondz's previous offerings (which include 'Storytelling' and 'Happiness') may say it is more of the same thing. A central new twist with Palindromes is that the central character – a twelve/thirteen year old girl – is played quite convincingly by a wide array of characters that are physically very different (black/white, obese/skinny, young/old, and in one incarnation even a young boy). They all have an eerie likeness and it is a credit to Solondz that, even without being warned of the device, audiences have barely a second's hesitation in linking up that it is the same person.

Aviva (her name is palindromic - spelt the same forwards or backwards) is 12 or 13 years old but has a very strong desire to have a baby. This is presented as quite a core issue with her, rather than a passing whim. Her mother reels between hysterical intolerance and forceful supportiveness, trying to be a 'good mother', feeling inadequate at the job, and making strident attempts to steer her wayward daughter. When Aviva first expresses her wish it's along the lines of wanting lots of babies so she will always have someone to love (she is a sweet and lovable, slightly chubby, black child and the wish is not taken to mean immediate action at this point). When she makes fumbling attempts to realise her aim with a boy about the same age she knows, we start feeling worried, even though the scene is trivialised and offered as humour. Solondz repeatedly tempts us to laugh at or with the characters during tragically gruesome scenes and then feel guilty about it. Aviva doesn't give up, even when we know her quest has become impossible.

One of the ways we test a proposition is to say, 'what are the exceptions'? Does it apply under all conditions? An Internet psychology test used rapid responses to demonstrate that, even people who think they are not racially prejudiced, still instinctively tend to view black people differently. We have innate prejudices about colour, gender, age, size/obesity that are not easy to overcome. Palindromes, by taking one character and showing her in many physical forms, makes us ask ourselves if we think differently about her situation when we give her a different physical form. If we feel sorry for her in one incarnation but less so (or more so) when her physical appearance is changed, what does that say about us? Similarly, if we make a judgement about a person, or about what is 'best' for a person, would it be the same if we could see into the future or different futures? The film's apparent premise (stated within the movie) is that we are always the same, we can't change, even though we grow older, may have a boob job or sex change, we are fated to be the same person – we always come back to being who we are (a bit like a palindrome, that is spelt the same whether read left to right or right to left). 'How many times can I be born again?' screams a lapsed 'born-again' paedophile later in the movie. Is a person really fated to not be able to change? What might be truer would be to say that it takes a lot for people to change, to overcome natural hubris and unchanging habit – if we are each individually a product of our genes, our environment and our inner will (or 'soul' for religious people), then real change has to be not just more than skin deep but deep enough to overcome external influences and predispositions. (When watching Palindromes, look out for the Wizard of Oz references!) But ultimately Solondz neither philosophises nor moralises – he simply observes. That he observes such controversial, dilemma-ridden and offensive subject matter may provoke constructive thought in some (especially if you think he does it in a caring way) but derision in others. His pessimism is tempered by the fact that he gets away with it – quips Solandz - "It says something good about mankind and people's discretion that when I walk in the street to pick up my groceries nobody has assaulted me."

Seen at the London Film Festival, 27/10/04.

I've seen a lot of strange films in my life, but this has to be right up there. Compared to this, "Happiness" was a crowd-pleasing knockabout comedy. I have to say that I found "Palindromes" hard going, even boring at times, although there was definitely a slow burn quality and by the end I was pretty much drawn in.

The film plays rather like a cross between Luis Bunuel and a live action "South Park". The multiple-actress technique pioneered in "That Obscure Object of Desire", deadpan style and flat picture quality on the one hand, taboo-breaking humour, song 'n' dance and perverse exploration of moral issues on the other.

I wonder what a conservative audience would make of this film. My guess is that it's aimed squarely at a liberal audience, but it absolutely refuses to pander to liberal prejudice, instead laying into the "pro-choice" position in a manner which can only be described as destruction testing. I get the feeling that Solondz is challenging his own opinions on the issue, as much as ours. Pro-lifers might see the storyline as vindicating their beliefs, but I dare say would be so horrified by other aspects of the film that they wouldn't make it to the end.

This is probably Solondz' bleakest movie to date, despite moments of (very dark) humour. Scientific rationalism is weighed against religious fundamentalism and both are found utterly wanting.

Incidentally there is no rape in this film, despite comments elsewhere, although there are certainly very disturbing scenes.

A brave movie, overall. I'm sure Solondz could take the David Lynch/John Waters route towards the (relative) mainstream with considerable success, but "Palindromes" sees him driving determinedly in the opposite direction, in every respect.

"Palindromes" is a fascinating visual thought experiment.

Very parallel to Alexander Payne's "Citizen Ruth" in covering some of the same territory about abortion, writer/director Todd Solontz mostly eschews that film's satire and easy jabs for a protean look at an issue that has a more complicated emotional landscape than advocates on either side usually concede.

He does this by literally taking us inside the mind of a young malleable adolescent who intentionally gets pregnant and is surprised at the reactions of those around her. Sometimes we see her as she sees herself, as if we are reading her diary, with her body-hating hopes for a change in hair, skin, age or family, and sometimes we see her as others see her.

Every one wants to control "Aviva" and their hypocritical selfishness is laid bare, regardless of their various good intentions. Her mother sees her still as a baby (a welcome back to the screen for Ellen Barkin who manages to add maternal warmth to hostile dialog) to the discomfiting sexualization (Britney-ization?) of just barely teens that is just barely a step above pedophilia, to how she is seen by pro-life advocates (whose Sunshine Band for "special children" seems almost as exploitative as JonBenet Ramsey's performances) and on in a picaresque dream scape that crosses a nightmare that is a bit extreme, especially for fans of "Welcome to the Dollhouse."

Solontz pulls this off by having every image of "Aviva" (according to the director's production notes) "portrayed by two women, four girls (13-14 years old), one 12-year-old boy, and one 6-year old girl" of widely variant size, shape, color and just about every other possible outward characteristic, even though one haranguer points out that no one can ever really change.

Solontz in a hand-out at the theater defined his use of the title as meaning "a condition of stasis and/or immutability; that part of one's personality or character that resists change, stays the same," but I'm not sure that successfully comes through in this provocative film, especially with some of the acerbic dialog and disturbing actions.

Nathan Larson's music is appropriately eerie, with spooky vocalizations by Nina Persson.

Releasing the film without a rating will probably keep it from being seen by young teens which is too bad as it is a frank and fresh look at the pressures on girls from friends, family and society.

Todd Solondz returns with an excellent piece of film making in this very twisted fairy tale. It tells the story of Aviva who desperately wants to have a baby despite being very young. She craves loving attention and when not getting it at home believes that having a baby will bring her a strong enough bond to fill her emotional void. On falling pregnant after her first sexual encounter her parents insist she has an abortion, this she does but not happy she runs away from home. And so her story begins as she travels from one bizarre encounter to another, some funny and some sad. The pace of the film is pitched just right and it takes you along with the trial and tribulations of Aviva despite her being played by several different characters. This has been done to play with the audience's preconceptions of how you identify with a character depending on how they look and it works to startling effect. In between Aviva leaving home and the emotional reunion with her parents we are subjected to the seedy underbelly of Middle America within an array of characters the league of gentlemen boys would struggle to make up. Nothing seems taboo to Solondz and this makes for a refreshingly different movie experience if you can get your head around it. Shocking in places but ultimately rewarding to anyone prepared to give palindromes a chance.

Obviously the film isn't for everyone and anyone who has seen Happiness or Welcome to the Dollhouse knows what they're in for. The film sat well with me though.. far from the sadistic gut-kickings of Happiness, the characters here are broken softly and with great sadness. The subject matter of the film will turn many people off (violently), but the actual execution I found inoffensive, and a worthwhile trip. I'm convinced that Mark Weiner's reappearance at the end of the film is a stand-in for Solondz himself, as he dryly confirms that he is not a pervert, and is in return told by the protagonist that he is too passionless to be a pervert. There's more soul searching in this film than misanthropy and it's a positive turn for the director.

13-year-old Aviva is awkward and sensitive. And she wants a baby. She meets(and yes, has intercourse with) a couple of potential fathers, runs away from home and is at one point with a family of fanatical Christians where most of the members are children who were abandoned because of a disability they have... and this portion is the creepiest and most disturbing thing I've ever seen(and you feel trapped there). Solondz divides audiences yet again. This has been called provocative, smart, artsy, disgusting and honest, and I think it is all of the above. No, the man is not "well", mentally. The line between genius and madman is thin, if there is one. While this doesn't mean that we should accept everything that is offensive, I do think that this one offers enough insight and poses important questions. Sometimes you have to break the rules, go against taboo, to point something out. If there isn't a message, or it is a purely destructive one, we can discard the work as "wrong". This confronts abortion from several angles, with the usual black, frank approach and existentialism of the writer/director. The story's structure is a palindrome, and several of the names are... because we never really change. We are what we are, and the fundamentals of that remain the same. There are a handful of different people portraying our lead, including a boy(not unlike I'm Not There). This is to show her emotional state at the time, and all we ever see of others are projections, anyway, we never truly see the entire person. Every single role in this is perfectly cast, and the acting is utterly amazing by them all. This arguably makes the point that women want kids, and men want sex. Every character is well-developed, credible and a real human being. We may like them or hate them; we can't help but respond to them. This has few cuts and many long takes. The camera moves if it should, and otherwise not. This is funny at times. The theme song is haunting. There is a lot of pedophilia, a little strong language and brief, bloodless violence in this. The DVD comes with a trailer for this. I recommend this to anyone with a sufficiently open mind to appreciate this. Not for everyone, and not meant to be. 7/10

I just saw this at SXSW in Austin, Tx on March 14, 2005 and all 1200 people in the Paramount theater had to laugh because if they didn't they would have to cry. Before the movie, Todd Solondz himself wished that we would enjoy this "fable/fairy tale". Though this movie has fable like qualities, I wouldn't suggest showing this movie to a kid unless you were interested in destroying the kid's morale. Every character in the movie is malignantly realistic and I lost count of how many times I put my hand over my mouth and shook my head trying to decide to laugh or scream. "Palindromes" has a totally unique way of looking at abortion, pedophilia, individualism, family and parenthood through the points of view of these well developed characters. Though we may not have wanted to experience these point of view, the character's acceptance of their own realities makes the viewer take another look at their reality.

I think this is a great movie for people with daughters. If this movie doesn't make you want to be a better parent then I guess there is no hope after all. Well, I'm finally closing in on 200 words, I could have definitely stopped after saying "people had to laugh because if they didn't they would have to cry."

Whenever a film by Todd Solondz comes out I'm excited. The reason I'm excited and the reason most people are excited is because you know it's going to break all kinds of taboos and be disgusting and tasteless and blah, blah, blah. When you sit down and view a Solondz feature you know it will be one sick friggin' movie, and 'Palindromes' definitely delivers on that account. It's not so much 'Palindromes' breaks so many taboos is that it is perhaps his most unsettling film. Yes, even more unsettling then his most acclaimed work 'Happiness' which followed a perverted prank caller, a serial-killing fatty, a struggling novelist who wished she was raped as a little girl and a psychiatrist who is secretly a homosexual pedophile. 'Palindromes' is unsettling because it deals with such a dark and very realistic element of life -- childhood pregnancy. We follow a little girl (played by different actresses in every section including a morbidly obese black woman and JENNIFER JASON LEIGH!) who has an abortion because her mother (Ellen Barkin) makes her. The little girl is confused and angry so she runs away and finds what could be solace with a simple country Christian household that adopts disabled children who form a Christian pop band while the man of the house conspires to murder abortion doctors. It's one sick film, but it's also poignant too.

All of the actresses who play the little girl do a very fine job. Ellen Barkin is solid in her really nothing role, while Mathew Faber (who reprises his role from 'Welcome to the Dollhouse') is hysterical and consistently a pleasure to watch especially during his 'nobody ever changes in life' speech at the end which seems to be one of the main points Solondz's 'Palindromes' tries to get across. I feel Solondz tries to open our eyes by saying not everything is what it seems and life isn't a beautiful perfect thing. He expresses this by showing us a seemingly wholesome family with good "christian" values who commit such disgusting and heinous acts such as murder. 'Palindromes' is a very dark movie on one hand, but a very hysterical one on the other. The scene where the disabled kids are singing in their Christian pop band caused me to burst into uncontrollable laughter, while the kids' quirky and hilariously satirical dialogue at the breakfast tablee scene reminds of a Brady Bunch Episode from hell.

'Palindromes' is a good film, but it is probably Solondz's weakest effort. I was semi-satisfied with it, but I was really expected a hell of a lot more. The acting was good (but not as good as his other films), the writing was good (but not nearly as good as 'Happiness' or 'Welcome to the Dollhouse) but the directing seemed to be more improved then any of his other films (except that opening scene shot on a camcorder -- I think that was supposed to be very low-budget). Die-hard indie, Solondz or just off-beat film fans will enjoy this, but someone expecting a mainstream feature will detest it. View 'Palindromes' at your own risk. If you find it repulsive and devastating to watch, don't say I didn't warn you. Grade: B

my ratings guide - A+ (absolutley flawless); A (a masterpiece, near-perfect); A- (excellent); B+ (great); B (very good); B- (good); C+ (a mixed bag); C (average); C- (disappointing); D+ (bad); D (very bad); D- (absolutley horrendous); F (not one redeeming quality in this hunk of Hollywood feces).

No-one could ever accuse Todd Solondz of making 'nice' films. From the very beginning, he has dealt with the harshest of subjects but with what seems like the 'sickest' sense of humor. The sexuality of children is often to the fore with his 'Wiener' films being perhaps the most misanthropic.

"Palindromes" begins with a dedication to the fictional Dawn Wiener but then takes up the story of Aviva, played by a variety of performers of varying ages, both male and female, (you couldn't say Solondz isn't an 'equal opportunities' director), with a series of loosely linked sketches passing for a plot like some kind of warped fairytale. It's certainly original but flimsy and Solondz's cynicism often leaves a very sour taste. Ultimately there isn't much here to get your teeth into and I can't say I really cared for it.

Todd Solondz, is a man who dares to go where other auteurs would not go. As a result, his films are tremendous achievements because of what he decides to explore on screen. Obviously, his films are not directed for the masses. His films are appreciated by a small group that know what Mr. Solondz is capable of tackling. This is a man who appears not to know shy away from getting involved in what is wrong with the suburban society he seems to know so well.

If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.

In this new film, Todd Solondz takes us back to the Wieners, the family that he introduced to us in his debut, as we watch the closed casket of Dawn. At the same time we are shown another family that are related to the Wieners, the Victors. The director loves to examines the family dynamics, as it's the case with the study he does on the Victors.

Aviva Victor is a girl who wants to have a child. Alas, it's not going to happen any time soon. We see, in painful detail what this young woman does to her suburban parents. Joyce, the mother, is shocked and horrified. There's only one thing in her mind to do: Aviva is made to have an abortion, to which she doesn't agree, but one that is forced on herself.

Joyce, the materialistic mother, in a scene that is about the best thing in the film, tries to reason with Aviva and offers her own story about how she had also aborted a baby, who would have been named Henry, after her father. Her motives are purely based on whatever sacrifices the arrival of the unwanted baby would have meant in the Victors life.

Aviva, after the botched abortion by Dr. Fleisher, takes to the road in a way to show her rebellion against what has been forced on her. Aviva, for her young age, is extremely wise as to what to do and what to expect from the different people she meets along the way.

The device by Mr. Solondz to have eight different actors play Aviva, pays up in a way one wouldn't even have thought it would. Each one of the actor/actress leaves his/her own imprint in playing this disturbed girl. The most appealing of the different people playing the girl is the "Sunshine Aviva", the Afro-American that makes quite an impression in her take on this sad lost soul.

When Aviva is found by the side of a brook, the kind Peter Paul brings her to the Sunshines' home. These amazingly couple are too good to be true, as one discovers later on. The motherly Mama Sunshine is anyone's idea of how a mother should be. Not having family of her own, they have taken about a dozen children, each with a physical problem, but who appear to lead a happy existence with the Sunshines.

Peter Paul takes Aviva one day to the dump site where some of the discards from the abortion hospital take the fetuses. Aviva is horrified, she identifies to the fact that wanting to have a child of her own, this reality hitting her in the face is too much for her. Aviva then takes to the road again with the man she has had a sexual encounter before. This proves fatal as he is a man on a mission, an executioner that acts for the hate group that the Sunshines belong to.

The film is multi layered with an incredible texture between the adventures Aviva experiences. "Palindromes" is a hypnotic film. Any viewer falling under its spell is in for a magic ride guided by Todd Solondz.

What the director has gotten from this talented cast is one of the best ensemble playing from any indie film this year. Ellen Barkin has one of the best moments of her career as Joyce Victor in the sequence where she tries to explain to Aviva the reason for aborting. Debra Monk, a fine, but underused actress, is magnificent as Mama Sunshine. Ms. Monk's appearance shows us a woman that on the surface is something, when in reality she is a monster. Sharon Wilkins, the "Sunshine Aviva" gives a compassionate reading that reveals so much of the young girl she represents. Alexander Brickel's Peter Paul, the boy that befriends Aviva, plays the sweet boy perfectly. Also in the cast, the wonderful Stephen Adly Guirgis, who plays the right wing enforcer fanatic.

Mr. Solondz is to be congratulated in getting a tamed performance from the otherwise intense Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays one of the most quiet Avivas.

This film proves that Mr. Solondz loves to takes chances in telling stories that are dark and not commercial, but he makes them resonate with his viewers because he doesn't compromise with what he perceives as the truth around him. This is a man who is not a wishy washy when it comes to taking chances in being an original.

I admit, I liked the idea of this. The story is completely a waste for me, even though we all like to poke cheap fun at sanctimonious fundamentalists as the ironic representative of a flawed designer.

What's at the core here is the device of portraying our 13 year old girl by a variety of beings. I liked it when I saw it elsewhere, especially the implicit merger of being in the work of Garcia. Is it worth it for this actorly circumlocution alone? Probably yes, because of the way it is handled. The character, like all real ones, is a blur, a manifold being. We never see people anyway, only our models of them. So to break the wall and see many models is a sort of intimacy. Its not a gimmick, but a device that works.

And that's why we come. For something that goes deeper.

I wish, though, that Solandz was a bit deeper as a person. Medem goes deeper on this ambiguous identity thing. Several Tilda Swinton projects like "Conceiving Ada" or "Female Perversions" go deeper into the knots of birth urge.

Like so many other theatrical experiments, one wishes the technician would meet and marry the emotional explorer. Not work with, not have a relationship with, but marry and coabsorb. Embodiment of futures.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Todd Solondz's fifth feature, a divisive drama-comedy even among his acolytes, PALINDROMES makes great play of an outré gimmick, its protagonist, a 13-year-old girl Aviva is played by eight different actors in its chronicling chapters (8 chapters plus a coda rehashes the same procedure in Aviva's broody attempt), they are vary in appearance, age, race, even sex (including one familiar face, Jennifer Jason Leigh, superbly cooing to capture a child's mannerism), fairly predates I'M NOT THERE. (2007), from another Todd, incontrovertibly much more prestigious, Mr. Haynes. Yes, Aviva, her name is a palindrome, which is recently implemented in Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL (2016) to under-gird the ethereal mystery of predestination, yet in Solondz's methodology, palindromes are emblems of human nature, which is explicitly rounded out by the acrimonious speech of Mark Wiener (Faber) near the ending, a character stems from Solondz's breakthrough WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995), here an alleged pedophile shunned by everyone else but Aviva - we perpetually run back to the same pattern in our individual trajectory and remain more- or-less the same person, that is palindrome, a sociological pathology nestled everywhere.

The story unflinchingly tackles the thorny subjects of baby fever, teen sex, abortion-and-its-risk, child abuse, religious fanatics and pedophile, sometimes feels a tad over-stretching to skewer all these into one feature length, and how on earth could we endorse an opinionated pre-teen who is possessed with the idea of becoming a mother, with some part of the world is still endemic with harrowing child-bride horrors? Nor can we lay the complete blame on her helicopter mom Joyce Victor (Barkin), as self-serving and inconsiderate as she is, when a girl is at that delicate age, honestly, moms always know the best.

Ingenious as the narrative device is, spoon-feeds us with the universality of the identity of Aviva, each chapter can be regarded as a vignette holds its own wholeness, interleaved with an idyll interlude when Aviva is played by a boy (Denton) roaming in the countryside. The meat of the story is the chapter where Aviva is portrayed by a plus-size adult black woman (Wilkins), an elephantine presence where a 13-year-old girl dwells inside, this agency of discrepancy imbues a perturbing vibe during Aviva's sojourn with the counter-intuitively insidious foster family headed by God- botherers Mama Sunshine (Monk) and Bo Sunshine (Bobbie). And in the ensuring sequences where Aviva hitchhiking with a stocky middle-aged lorry-driver-turns-hit-man Bob (Guirgis), the inappropriately one-sided tenderness is spiked with a pungent scent of reactive self- consciousness from another side, one might get bemused in Solondz's straddling stance about the semi-romantic-semi-perverse rapport (though we firmly grasp his take on pro-choice/pro-life option) until the violence bursts out, follows by a foregone conclusion and rounds off Aviva's daring adventure.

Contentious in its self-inflicted archness, PALINDROMES is hard to decipher after its bold but sketchy presentation of a nexus of problems beset in America, like a nihilistic anecdote sums up to this: everything sucks, people are doomed and our world rotates in a rut, ad nauseam, especially under today's circumstances, we don't need to watch a movie to get a glimpse of this.

"Palindromes" is a magnificent movie unlike anything else I have seen. Not only is the main song haunting, but the characters will stick in the mind for days. Aviva, the main character portrayed by 8 different actors is a young disturbed child with one desire, to have a child so she will always be loved by someone. Aviva goes through many strange and sometimes disturbing escapades. This film explores the tender subjects of abortion, statutory rape, religious extremists, pedophilia, and change. Essentially, Aviva and the other characters end up having names that are palindromes ie. Bob etc. This is symbolic of the fact that no one ever changes despite obstacles and bizarre occurrences that happen in their lives.

Many times Solondz's films are misunderstood. They are often deemed sacrilegious, vulgar, or plainly disgusting. If you are one of these people shame on you, Solondz simply explores and exploits major issues that happen everyday. No other director besides Larry Clark is bold enough to do this. Personally, I think the dialogue in Solondz's films is brilliant and witty. He chooses tasteful casts that depict their characters perfectly. The audience is able to easily relate to the characters or simply hate them. I praise Solondz for his work.

PALINDROMES (2005) ** Ellen Barkin, Richard Masur, Valerie Shusterov, Hannah Freiman, Will Denton, Rachel Corr, Sharon Wilkins, Shayna Levine, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Debra Monk, Walter Bobbie, Richard Riehle, Stephen Adly-Guirgis, Matthew Faber, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell. (DIR: Todd Solondz)

RIP Dawn Weiner; Todd Solondz returns to the Dollhouse and then some

Say this about Todd Solondz, he won't be making any Disney films anytime soon. The off-beat indie filmmaker, who came onto the scene 10 years ago in his landmark scathing comedy "Welcome to The Dollhouse" returns to the scene with this sequel (kind of) to his first film masterpiece in angst and anomie. However something is decidedly lost in the translation of dysfunctional families in suburbia.

The film begins with the closed-casket funeral of "Dollhouse"'s 'WienerDog', Dawn Wiener, who has committed suicide apparently so awfully that we cannot even get a glimpse of her as her sullen, nerd brother Mark (Faber reprising his role) offers a solemn eulogy, where their cousin is introduced. Solondz employs a gimmick of using an octet of actresses of different races, ages and shapes in his bizarre story about a pre-adolescent girl named Aviva (note the titular affectation) whose only dream to come true – to have lots and lots of babies – is explored at arm's length much to the dismay of her manic/depressive mother Joyce (Barkin in one of her finer moments) who is shocked when Aviva in fact gets impregnated on her first seriously awkward encounter with a neighbor's heinous son that leads her and her spouse Steve (vet character actor Masur) to force Aviva to abort.

What happens next is Aviva running away from home to be discovered by a family of adopted children of different backgrounds and with some handicaps all under the roof of the Christian Mama Sunshine (Monk) and her evangelical husband Bo (Bobbie) – who both seem too good to be true with their altruistic intentions. Here their brood of misfits take on a creepy underscore reminiscent of the cult classic "Freaks" but Solondz does manage to give his real-life challengers moments of humanity that all are but evident in the decidedly ugliness of what transpires.

Of the eight actresses who portray the clueless Aviva, Wilkins stands out as the most memorable if not largely for her zaftig woman-child interpretation with her borderline gargantuan stature (the impression is of a giantess growing in mid-transformation with the sundresses nearly bursting from her ample body) but displays some real emotion in her confusion and dismay at just wanting to be loved and to love someone that makes her few moments on screen so memorable. A haggard looking Leigh also shocks in her seemingly drugged turn before the film's end.

Solondz' puree of pornographic elements, pedophilia, right-wing Born Again Christianity, pre-marital sex and the handicap feel uneasy – and arguably exploitive - and that may be the point that he excessively puts on display with a freakshow mentality that gets lost in the translation that we are all one and vice versea.

In this second cousin to "Dollhouse" the film doesn't cohese easily as its far superior black comic/tragic predecessor but its meanness is all too-apparent as well as the political agenda of what is wrong with America (read: abortion and the Right Wing Christian sects right-to-lifers) yet Aviva does get across one true theme: we are not who we seem to be.