Product Description

From Todd Solondz, the critically acclaimed director of Welcome to the Dollhouse comes a film comprised of two separate stories set against the sadly comical terrain of college and high school, past and present. Following the paths of its young hopeful/troubled characters, it explores issues of sex, race, celebrity and exploitation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13919 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2002-07-16
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 87 minutes

Amazon.com
Todd Solondz, director of the acclaimed Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, continues pushing the envelope of social decorum with the merciless and casually cruel Storytelling, his most ruthless satire of suburban complacency. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair through a degrading encounter with her resentful writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the more sprawling and scattershot "Non-Fiction" circles around the mutual exploitation of a fumbling documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). The squirmy laughs are laced with humiliation and the satire is acidic and cynical; in the world of Solondz, victims and victimizers alike are petty, selfish, vindictive, and thoughtless, and empathy is strictly rationed. Though sharply written and well directed, this misanthropic vision is strictly for daring filmgoers and Solondz fans. --Sean Axmaker

From The New Yorker
Another disturbance of the peace from the writer-director Todd Solondz, who made "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness." This time, we get a movie split in half, the first part of which concerns a creative-writing student (Selma Blair), thin and white, who dumps her disabled boyfriend and, for good measure, sleeps with her black professor. In the second half, we trace the exploits of a documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti) who wants to unearth what the youth of today are doing with themselves in high school. The answer is, more or less, nothing, although we do come across one slacker who would like to be on TV. In short, Solondz presents two tales meant to winkle out the cultural encounters that embarrass us the most, and then twists the knife and leaves us squirming harder than before. It's clever enough, and you could gash yourself on some of the lines, but, when a director is as resolutely ungenerous as Solondz, the end can only come as a relief. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

This movie Stinks!
Don't even waste your time!! The movie made NO sense what-so-ever to me!! Its a dark comedy....do what???? I did not laugh NOT once!! Not even smile... I just want to tell you--- it sucks! That is all.

...storytelling
Well. Not a film that I would recommend to anyone except serious film buffs who can stomach some pretty rough material. I barely made it through one scene...however, it's tamer than Solondz's previous films.

One can sense that Solondz is merely attacking his critics, and is using satire to do so. He pulls no punches, and as usual, remains as cynical as ever. The performances are great all around. The film is split into two parts, "Fiction" and "Non-fiction", which seem unrelated at first. It's not until after the film ends, that you can pick up on the subtle connections between the two. Once again, not a film that I would recommend to just anyone, but if you are familiar with Solondz at all, it's worth a shot...however, there are two scenes here that are rough and a bit gratuitous in nature. One could have been edited out all together, as it seemed to exist only for shock value and worked against the context of the film itself. That is my only criticism.

Trite stories told badly
The purpose of this review is to save someone 87 minutes of life. Spend that time elsewhere than with this film.
Before writing this review, I required myself to read all 68 previous reviews of the film posted on [...]. I usually allow myself this privilege only after I write a review. I want to record what I need to say before I allow others their fair say. I want to trust what I think, what I feel; I no longer want others--be they scholars or celebrities or athletes or family or friends--to think for me. Let me think, let me express, then let me consider the thoughts of others.
This time, though, my thoughts were so clear. This is trash--vulgar trash.
Am I surprised that people loved this movie? Yes. How did they record their impressions? One wrote about the "Sartrean power struggles" in the movie. If that phrase makes sense to you, perhaps this movie will also.
So I cast my vote with the haters of this movie, the critics who are forced to give it one star because we are not allowed to give it no stars, the critics who wrote the following:
"Less real than Sponge Bob Squarepants. . ."
"There isn't a laugh in it. . ."
"Arrogantly refuses to tell a cohesive story. . ."
"Simply mean-spirited. . ."
"More the illusion of substance. . .than substance. . ."
"It. . .offended me, bored me, confused me. . .very rarely did I feel entertained."
Save yourself.