Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

A Z What makes Storytelling stand apart from other Solondz works is that it is a more explicit commentary on film-making, documenting, any kind of storytelling. With this film, we get a meta-presentation of the craft (Mulholland Drive comes to mind here).In the "fiction" portion, we have a student writing about a personal experience in a college writing class. The experience is explicitly shocking in its racial and sexual questioning, but even the 'shockingness' of it is questioned by Solondz. Unsurprisingly, Solondz beats us to the punch, already mapping our responses. The writing class responds to the story much like many of the reviewers here, using language like "self-indulgent" and "shock with no substance". Solondz then brings up the question, "how can this be if it really happened?" What Solondz is depicting the grimy underbelly of suburbia, true in character, only appearing absurd and contrived when high in density. But once again, Solondz jabs us with the theory that "once you begin writing it all becomes fiction." Within this first short section of this movie, Solondz has set everything up for us: an impenetrable, self-referential mobius strip of a movie.In the second portion of the film, we are told the story of the documentary. Despite the family being documented in a "non-fictional" way, we get caricatures of their beings. The director generally does 'care' about his subjects but like the typical Solondzian ending "don't be sorry, your movie's a hit", we see the struggle of a filmmaker seeking to please his audience as well as 'staying true' to the art.What is ironic here is that Solondz' characters aren't really "mean-spirited" and "banal" people. It is more likely that these adjectives can be applied to the audience who doesn't see 'the truth', who overlooks the diluting processes of documentation; the writing class, the test-audience, you and me. Self-referential paradigms are often over-deterministic and thus seemingly unnecessary, but Solondz has a more lighthearted manner to his display. He isn't really misanthropic; he understands the value, the necessity of discussion, enough to create characters and movies of an accessible complexity. He may be a bit bitter, shrugging his shoulders and saying "don't listen to me, what I know?", but what he really means is "C'est la vie, so what are you going to do about it?"

Olive Hoover The movie consists of two different parts - two different approaches to the storytelling. The mutual thread - what people are capable of doing in the search of the inspiration... Not to mention the main character's alienation, which is a leitmotif in all Solondz's works. Even though people tend to criticise the first, short part, it is quite interesting. I think that the key to that part is the teacher's comment on Marcus story, "The Wrongness of Truth": "is that supposed to be a joke of some sort…or are you just being pretentious?" Quite a gimmick… The second part - well, it's just a masterpiece. Makes you feel depressed and amused at the same time. Truly admire Solondz's work

richard_sleboe This is a story of continuous failure and humiliation, told through the eyes of feature film maker Todd Solondz, using the perspectives of an aspiring writer (Selma Blair) and an actor-turned-documentary film maker (Paul Giamatti, of "Sideways" acclaim), who use pen and camera to distance themselves from their subject matter in turn. While the writer is her own subject, the filmmaker finds a teenage outcast to tell his story of "American Scooby". So what we see is three to four levels removed from reality, whatever that may be. Sounds glum and complicated? Uh-huh. Solondz gets a few cerebral kicks out of the whole truth-and-fiction hodgepodge, but it's all a bit too academic to be much fun. Fans of Selma Blair, however, will not want to miss it. 20 minutes into the movie, and already she has gotten her kit off twice. Ironically, the movie's second segment is actually the more interesting, perhaps because John Goodman makes such an imposing dad. If you liked "Happiness", find someone who liked "Little Miss Sunshine" and go see a movie together. It doesn't necessarily have to be this one.

Adam *MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS* All in all, this film was hard to watch at times. I knew going into it that it was going to be a somewhat disturbing experience. It is Solondz after all. However, when you compare it to his previous films, "Happiness" and "Palindromes", it seems like Sesame Street in comparison.The film is split up into two parts: "Fiction" and "Non-fiction". The first story deals with a young lady who has enrolled in a writing class with her handicapped boyfriend. Her teacher is an overbearing and brutally honest black man. It is apparent that there is some sexual tension between the two of them. She dumps her boyfriend, goes to a bar one night, and her professor just so happens to be there. She ends up back at his place, and something horrible happens to her that pretty much ruins her emotionally. She writes a fictional short story based upon what happened to her that night Everyone in class accuses her of exploitation, of being a racist, etc. Her only response to the harsh criticism: "But it really happened!" Powerful stuff...The second half of the film deals with a documentary filmmaker who is basically supposed to represent Solondz himself. He wants to make a film about teenagers living in modern day suburbia, and he chooses a slacker named Scooby to be his subject. Scooby comes from an extremely dysfunctional family, headed by his extremely temperamental father. Scooby doesn't know what he wants out of life, doesn't even care to take the SATs at school, and wants to be a talk show host when he grows up. He has two brothers. One is your typical high school jock, and he thinks that Scooby is gay. His younger brother is a demonic little intellectual brat who is continually harassing the maid, and on occasion, hypnotizes his parents to get what he wants. However, the documentary filmmaker insists that he cares about these people and decides to go on with his project. There are moments here where it is clear that Solondz is making a statement about past criticisms of his films. Anyone who has done any research on the director will pick up on this. Scooby pours his heart out in front of the camera, telling of his hopes and dreams. He ends up taking the SAT, albeit in a very unconventional way. All the while, the filmmakers intentions become less and less honorable. I will stop there for fear of giving away the shocking ending.Solondz may be letting off a little steam here, and some of it feels gratuitous. However, it gives you plenty of food for thought, and you won't be able to think about anything else for a while.