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Features: DVD
Palindromes is a fable of innocence: 13-year-old Aviva Victor wants to be a Mom. She does all 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 if she can ever be anything but the same again.
"...consistently, horrifyingly funny and sharp-witted..." Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times
"Like all this adventurous filmmaker's work, it's truly one of a kind." David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
"...a brave and challenging film..." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Editor's Note
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.
| Features | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Music Video Dist |
| Release Date: 6/5/2007 |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: 5466 | | UPC: 00720917546629 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Standard 1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Venice Film Festival (2004) | | | Todd Solondz, Nominee, Golden Lion |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"[C]onsistently, horrifyingly funny and sharp-witted..." 04/15/2005 p.E1Entertainment Weekly
"[A] memorable provocation....[Solondz] is peerless at inventing new and visionary ways to get under your skin..." 04/22/2005 p.43 Sight and Sound
"PALINDROMES offers many pleasures. Its characters are basically live-action cartoons, but several of the actors, making the most of Solondz's excellent dialogue, turn them into charming monster..." 05/01/2005 p.74 Uncut
"It's sometimes sinister, sometimes rapturous. Its strange experimentalism upholds a determination to avoid all accepted notions of the norm. It makes you wonder." 06/01/2005 p.138 Rolling Stone
"Solondz likes to put the screws to moral hypocrisy. As always, he goes too far. As always, you don't want to look away." 05/05/2005 p.86 Uncut
"Todd Solondz delivers his most sustained cinematic experiment so far....His clammy, darkly hilarious fairy tale will stay with you." 10/01/2005 p.148 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 6 of 10
Palindromes transpires in the same universe as Solondz's first feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. In fact, it opens with the funeral of that movie's protagonist, Dawn Weiner. At its best, Palindromes evokes the earlier film. As written, Aviva is much like Dawn. But the trick casting interferes with our ability to get to know her. And the acting is widely variable. Some of the performers to play Aviva are just plain bad. Then there's the strange case of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Why is an actress in her 40s playing a girl 30 years her junior? Again, we're supposed to look past appearances... Solondz is making a point here! The writer/director should have thought this idea through a little better before implementing it. - James Berardinelli
Rolling Stone 7 of 10
The films of Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling) read the same forward or backward -- they rub the grotesque in our faces, the better to see ourselves, my dears. His latest shocker, the startling and powerful Palindromes, casts eight actors to play Aviva, the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who runs away from home after her mother (a superb Ellen Barkin) talks her into an abortion. The actors range from Emani Sledge, 6, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, 43, to a preteen boy (Will Denton) and an overweight black woman (Sharon Wilkins). It's a gimmick that works when a truck driver (Stephen Adly-Guirgus) picks up Aviva, screws her, then brings her to Mama Sunshine (Debra Monk), a good Christian who houses disabled kids and preaches death to the wicked, notably abortionists. Solondz likes to put the screws to moral hypocrisy. As always, he goes too far. As always, you don't want to look away. - Peter Travers
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