Palindromes (film)
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| Palindromes | |
|---|---|
 Palindromes film poster |
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| Directed by | Todd Solondz |
| Produced by | Mike S. Ryan, Derrick Tseng |
| Written by | Todd Solondz |
| Starring | Ellen Barkin, Richard Masur, Angela Pietropinto |
| Distributed by | Wellspring Media |
| Release date(s) | September 3, 2004 |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Palindromes is a 2004 movie written and directed by Todd Solondz. In the same year it had been released, Palindromes had been nominated for a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.
It is centered around the protagonist, Aviva, a 13-year-old girl, who is played by eight different performers (of different ages, races, and sexes) during the course of the film. In addition to Aviva, Palindromes also features an array of secondary characters including her parents, Joyce and Steve Victor, family friends, and a foster family.
[edit] Plot
The movie opens with a seemingly unrelated scene, a somber funeral for a young woman. The person who has died is in fact Dawn Weiner, the main character from Todd Solondz's previous work, Welcome to the Dollhouse, who we find out: went to college, gained a lot of weight and committed suicide. Her brother Mark (Matthew Faber, reprising his role) is going to be reading the eulogy while Dawn's tearful parents remain in the audience. Solondz had asked the original actress Heather Matarazzo to return to the role, however she declined.
Aviva, the main character, is her cousin and is having serious desires to have a child. She ends up engaging in sexual intercourse with Judah, a family friend, and ends up becoming pregnant. Aviva's parents, however, are very much against her will to become a mother, due to her entirely-too-young age (13), and wish that she gets an abortion. While technically successful, in her dazed state it is implied via a fractured, emotional conversation with the doctor that Aviva can no longer have children. Not fully conscious, Aviva is unaware of this, and her parents, already fragile, lead her to believe all is well when she awakens, perhaps afraid to upset Aviva more in her fragile state.
Considering her strong desire to be a parent, Aviva runs away from home. She befriends a trucker whom she has sexual intercourse with as well. However, the trucker ends up abandoning Aviva at a motel. She eventually finds her way to the Sunshine Family, which is a Christian fundamentalist foster home that cares for orphans and runaways.
While at the Sunshine Family home, she discovers a dark side to the foster father; he is a murderer of abortion providers. His next target is the doctor who had performed Aviva's abortion earlier in the film. The hitman the foster father uses is the same trucker that Aviva had previously befriended and had sex with.
Convinced she is in love with the truck driver, she flees the Sunshine Family to join him on his assignment. The attempted murder did not go as planned, as he ends up accidentally killing the doctor's young daughter in addition to the doctor himself, when she steps in front of the first shot. The trucker (whose name is revealed to be Bob) and Aviva are both staying in a motel room. The police arrive and Bob ends up committing suicide by cop.
The movie then skips ahead to Aviva back home with her parents, planning her next birthday party. During the party, she talks to her cousin Mark (a crossover character from Welcome to the Dollhouse), who has recently been accused of molesting a baby. Then, the film skips ahead to Aviva meeting Judah — with whom she became pregnant by in the beginning of the movie - now calling himself "Otto", they engage in sexual intercourse.
Once again, Aviva believes she is pregnant. She is not likely to be, however, considering what the doctor said about her not being able to have children, which she is unaware of.
[edit] Trivia
- The names of the characters Aviva, Bob and Otto are all palindromes - as per the title of the film.
- At the start of the film, a text appears; "In Loving Memory of Dawn Wiener", which is the main character from a previous Todd Solondz film, Welcome to the Dollhouse.
