PALINDROMES
Directed & Written by: Todd Solondz.
Produced by: Mike S. Ryan & Derrick Tseng.
Director of Photography: Tom Richmond.
Edited by: Mollie Goldstein & Kevin Messman.
Music by: Nathan Larson.
Released by: Wellspring.
Country of Origin: USA. 100 min. Not Rated.
With: Ellen Barkin, Richard Masur, Sharon Wilkins, Debra Monk & Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Teenager Aviva's name stays the same, spelled forwards or backwards. Like people, palindromes never change. Played by seven actresses, all with a soft, whispery voice, Aviva is at a time white, black, briefly male, and of various shapes and ages. (Jennifer Jason Leigh is one of the Avivas.) The unorthodox casting actually proves effective; no matter the exterior, this hopeful and lonely character remains the same.

As a little girl, Aviva wants to have many babies so she'll always have someone to love. A few years later, her wish comes true. (As in director Todd Solondz's feature debut, Welcome to the Dollhouse, the sex is utterly mechanical and joyless.) Teenage motherhood is the last thing mother Joyce (Ellen Barkin) wants for her "one and only." Demanding her daughter have an abortion, Joyce warns Aviva her baby could be born deformed and she'll then be forced to live on food stamps. It soon becomes apparent why Aviva has a void in her life. Barkin steadily devolves from a concerned, bewildered parent to a narcissist without veering into caricature.

Clad in a belly shirt and tight jeans, Aviva runs away from home and stowaways on a truck, which takes her to the rural Midwest. She befriends a young boy, the preternaturally chipper Peter Paul (Alexander Brickel). Through him, Aviva (now played by Sharon Wilkins) finds a "home of love and faith" with a new maternal figure, Mama Sunshine. Living under her roof are about a dozen children: blind Barbara, the mentally disabled Skippy ("like the peanut butter"); and Ali, a former Muslim who has been "saved." Solondz doesn't mock the children themselves, but their programmed message; their enthusiasm is too infectious to ridicule as they perform as The Sunshine Singers (think a multicultural Brady Bunch with a pro-life anthem, "You Got to Fight for the Children.") Broadway veteran Debra Monk plays Mama Sunshine without a shred of condescension; she has the best of intentions, patiently raising a household of children with special needs. If there is a villain it would be Aviva's mother and Mama Sunshine's husband, who secretly plots to take the law into his own hands.

Solondz hits his target and then swiftly moves on to the next, whether he's sending up Joyce's materialism or the evangelical subculture (Mama Sunshine doesn't serve just ordinary cookies, they're "Jesus Tears"). As Aviva moves from one extreme to another, the satire doesn't go over the top (even when Peter Paul takes Aviva Dumpster-diving for discarded fetuses) thanks largely to the cast. Instead, the succinct dialogue is delivered in a deadpan manner, making the exchanges more piercing. The shell-shocked Avivas deliver their lines almost like somnambulists.

Palindromes isn't so much about abortion, but a girl being thrown from the frying pan into the fire. This pitch-black comedy is as pointed as last year's Saved, but without a redeeming sermon. With his sense of predestination, Solondz is like the Sam Shepard of the sterile suburban strip malls. As one hapless middle-aged man, guilty of at least three crimes, puts it, "How many times can I be born again?" Kent Turner
April 13, 2005