Director: Todd Solondz
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 1.0
Solondz tells his two stories (one labeled 'fiction,' the other 'nonfiction') and then engages in metacriticism, deconstructing everything he has just shown you and pointing out the obvious flaws in reason and logic. This approach might, in another instance, make for an interesting Derridian twist (the great French thinker gets a reference in here by Paul Giametti in case it wasn't clear), but I kept wondering: wouldn't not making a film have achieved the same effect and been more humane for the audience, who will no doubt grow increasingly disinterested as this meaningless exercise plays out? It is essentially an extended outtake from Happiness - sensationalist moments abound (Leo Fitzpatrick is the most articulate retarded young man I have ever seen ... and I know someone who has CP), Selma Blair has to say and do some pretty awful things - and, once more, a sense of humor is lacking (calling it 'black humor' is misleading; Monty Python, to me, fits that description better). Why am I starting to think of Todd as merely a one-trick pony? Find another angle.
