Storytelling is an interesting film because it's largely a critique of how Solondz approaches his work. As the title says, the movie is all about the way he tells his stories. Most of the negative criticism of Happiness focused on the perceived smugness and harshness of the directorial viewpoint, the sense that Solondz was looking down on his characters and mocking them for not being as smart or as sophisticated as he was. I never thought that criticism was accurate: for one thing, I felt that Solondz brought out the characters' pain and emotional torment, especially the torment of the father, far more than most conventionally "sympathetic" directors do. But Storytelling takes the critiques of Happiness seriously and places them right at the center of the film. In the "Fiction" part of the movie, Solondz shows us the complexities of people trying to understand and exploit each other's motives and desires. If his vision of the Selma Blair character is merciless in exposing her pretensions and hypocrisies, it's also equally unblinking in portraying her moving attempt to find her own viewpoint in a situation that turns her against herself in the cruelest way imaginable -- by making her feel responsible for her own degradation. Just as strikingly, the film's second segment, "Nonfiction," shows an art-house audience laughing smugly at the family on display: a pitch-perfect version of how many audiences reacted to the family in Happiness. At the very least, Storytelling shows that Solondz has thought deeply about his satirical method. While his films will never be for everyone's taste, I think this movie demonstrates that he approaches his subjects in good faith, with an artist's desire to deepen our concern for each other by facing squarely and honestly some of our worst qualities.
Review of Storytelling
