Storytelling

Review by By Clint Morris

A couple of years back I discovered some alternative shock therapy. Yep, it was at a movie theatre watching a Todd Solondz (Welcome to The Dollhouse) film. Called Happiness, it was an acrimoniously perverse but exceptionally hilarious look at urban America.

And, if I didn't get enough in-your-face gags from that one - and enough shocks to my system in the meantime - I'm back for a second serving, hoping for something as tasty as the first round.

Slightly more marketable - but only to the point of having some of Solondz's usual racy jokes and nauseating elements exercised out in favour of a star cast - Storytelling is a two-part story, one a story of misshapen obsession (Fiction) and the second, a look inside the life of a perplexed teenager and his half-baked family (Non-fiction). A third part, featuring James Van Der Beek, was left on the cutting room floor. Pity. it might have made the movie more worth its ticket price.

Fiction follows a wannabe writer afflicted with cerebral palsy (Leo Fitzpatrick) and his girlfriend (Selma Blair), who has sex with her college professor. She then decides to talk about it in her next class. Fade to black. The next part of the film, Non-Fiction, then spotlights a documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti) focused on an unhappy home. At first, the film was going to be about the college admission process but when the filmmaker meets young student, Scooby, he decides to make him the central piece and his family the co-stars.

As well written as Storytelling is, and as engaging as it might be, it hasn't got much of a point. The first part of the film is so short in duration you'll forget it was even tagged onto the print in the first place. The film's central moment of intimacy between a black school teacher and young horn-bag student is simply smut - and with no outcome for any of it's central characters. It's as if Solondz forgot what he was trying to say here.

The second part, although more comprehendible, still skids around it's message, but is at least worthwhile thanks to the significantly more compelling characters and better actors. But, most of all, both stories are just strange for the case of being strange.

On the plus side, John Goodman is at his customary adaptable best as the insufferable father of three, Marty Livingston. Paul Giamatti is great, and is as edgy and inflamed as the shoe-salesman turned documentary filmmaker. Newcomer Mike Schank is memorable as the youngest member of the Livingston family - it's hard to believe a kid could be so sickly evil at such an early age.

Maybe the third short, the one with Van Der Beek, might have saved the film from being the average offering it is. Storytelling isn't a diaster, but on all accounts a fair disappointment.

3 out of 5

Storytelling
Australian release: Thursday May 9th
Cast: Selma Blair, John Goodman, Paul Giamatti, Leo Fitzpatrick, Julie Haggerty, Mark Webber.
Director: Todd Solondz.
Website: Click here

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