Storytelling

Director Todd Solondz is a white Spike Lee. "Happiness" and "Storytelling" represent a pretentious exploitation of incendiary topics in the interest of aggrandizing the director without ever rising above a certain 'fuck-you' level of social awareness. Solondz is content to smear crap and yell, 'look at all of this bad cultural juju,' without ever suggesting a humane clarity at the bottom of his divisive vision. Director Sam Mendes ("American Beauty") said he found "Happiness" condescending to its characters, and Solondz took enough umbrage at the remark to make a cinematic retort that merely goes further in its foul contempt for human interaction than "Happiness" did. Solondz will likely never make a film half as good as "American Beauty," but that's beside the point. "Storytelling" is not worth the waste of time to watch it.
Rated R. 83 mins. (D) (One Star)