No one would ever mistake Todd Solondz as the sort of cinematic artist who makes films for mass consumption. His love-them-or-hate-them movies have polarized audiences and critics alike because of their unflinching content.
Even with that in mind, it's difficult to tell exactly who he made "Storytelling" for.
This painfully arch and incredibly self-absorbed film — which might best be described as a dark comedy — displays nearly all of Solondz's worst and laziest filmmaking tendencies in one compact package.
At certain times, he appears to be addressing his critics with particular venom and condescension. Elsewhere, he seems to be sending up the whole concept of American consumerism — with even more venom and condescension.
However, he'd do better to exorcise those demons in other places than movie houses. Such indulgences make his nearly impenetrable films even harder to watch.
"Storytelling" is broken into two parts. The first section is less than 30 minutes in length and is titled "Fiction," and that's the kind of writing that college student Vi (Selma Blair) is trying. Unfortunately, she's not very good at it, so she decides to challenge herself — and possibly further her writing career — by sleeping with her black professor (Robert Wisdom), a prize-winning author with a penchant for degrading his students and lovers.
In the second piece, the longer "Nonfiction," which is a spectacular failure, Toby Oxman (Paul Giamatti) decides to reinvent himself as a documentary filmmaker, so he chooses high school slacker Scooby Livingston (Mark Webber) as his subject for a film exploring apathetic youth. Obviously, the teen is excited to participate, as are his parents (John Goodman and Julie Hagerty), who are worried that he's going nowhere.
What's really going nowhere, though, is the film itself, which never seems to find its real focus. (Solondz's "cleverest" moves here are attempts at "self-censorship," including a big red block that obscures an on-screen sex scene, and a past-its-prime send-up of "American Beauty." Ho-ho!)
And Solondz, who doesn't usually create the most likable characters, provides an even less interesting lot than usual.
"Storytelling" is rated R for frequent use of strong, sexually related profanity, simulated sex, full female nudity, simulated drug use (marijuana) and both vulgar slang terms and racial epithets. Running time: 83 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com