Review of Storytelling (2001) by Tristan G — 18 Mar 2008

Yuck. STORYTELLING is by the director of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE and HAPPINESS and, surprisingly, is his most disturbing film. It is a film that really tries to undermine all the ugliness of the human race with incredibly heartless cruelty.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE was the film in which a little girl suffers ridicule at the hands of her classmates and family in hostile, over-the-top ways. HAPPINESS was the film in which a man rapes women over the phone while another abuses his son's friends.

Both of those films were directed and written in smart, clever, ironic, and challenging ways that made sense and were better films. STORYTELLING, however, seems to try to be as impossible to watch as possible.

Want proof? The opening scene involves a boy with cerebral palsy reading a story he wrote to his creative writing class before being ridiculed by his teacher and classmates about what a horrible piece of writing it is.

The film, from a distance, is about two stories called FICTION and NON-FICTION. FICTION is about a girl in a creative writing class who is assaulted by her teacher. NON-FICTION is about a dysfunctional family being filmed by a documentary filmmaker.

At a much closer look however, the film is just about awkward moments that everybody has only in this film they go horribly bad in every possible way. It's incredibly irritating and sickening to watch.

The characters are mostly sketchy and ugly, with the main exception being the character of Scooby in the second story. His character doesn't pretend to be happy and perfect. He isn't a jerk to everybody and doesn't constantly whine.

He lies a lot, mainly to himself, but doesn't harm anybody. The film covers all sorts of issues including the mentally disabled, rape, ridicule, race, homosexuality, the holocaust, and immigration.

I didn't like any of the characters, nor was I supposed to. Instead I felt sorry for everybody and kind of just wanted to to all die. However, it isn't that easy in this film. Everybody is just so insanely miserable that it eventually works it's way into your psyche.

I find this film to be a much more challenging film than Todd Solondz's previous outings. It's probably his least accessible and his worst. I find the film to be an incredibly daring work that certainly is worth checking out.

However, the film's efforts to shock and disturb manage to overwhelm the positive aspects of it. I love the film, but I don't feel at all comfortable recommending it.