Todd Solondz

During the first part of the 1990's, lots of indie directors rose to fame. Propelled by independent but driven producers like the Weinsteins, growing festivals, and more options in video rental and purchase, these artistic, edgy filmmakers started to make a name for themselves. Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, and Richard Linklater are a few of the people who turned their success with small projects into major movies.

One man came along at the end of this period who never really reached the mainstream like those now-famous filmmakers. His name is Todd Solondz, and while other people who started out as the "hot new filmmaker" like him went on to big things, he has staunchly remained in art house circuits. In fact, you could argue that he has only gotten more extreme and less commercial with each film. How often does that happen?

Solondz, who grew up in a dysfunctional North Jersey home, made a big splash at Sundance in 1995 with Welcome to the Dollhouse. This black comedy featured all unknowns and a tiny budget, but managed to capture the awkward side of high school like never before. Bullies, incompetent parents, and the tough part of growing up were all explored. The main character, superbly named Dawn Weiner, is a dorky girl trying to fit in as her parents ignore her for her cute little sister. Critics loved it, and were amazed at the blackness of the comedy, as Solondz made his heroine's life miserable but touching. It was the toast of Sundance, and like many of those others who gained famed there, people expected big things from Solondz.

For his next project, Solondz got to work with bigger name actors, but still kept to those in the indie ranks. To much surprise, he didn't use his festival success to catapult to a commercial project, instead going for an even riskier story. This time, he would feature even darker aspects of life for his black comedy, including pedophilia, perversion, suicide, and rape. His ambitious ensemble piece created more buzz in the indie world and appalled many family oriented movie watchers. This film, he ironically dubbed, is Happiness.

The film is an ensemble piece, tied together by a somewhat dysfunctional Jersey family. Three sisters (Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Cynthia Stevenson) all have different issues. Adams is a neurotic but optimistic girl who believes in goodness and wants to help save the world. Boyle is a selfish, insecure but successful writer who makes up stories of sexual abuse. Stevenson has a seemingly happy life with her psychologist husband (Dylan Baker), but there are undertones of sexual problems. Their parents (veterans Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara) live in Florida, retired but not happily. The other person who has a storyline is Boyle's perverted neighbor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, brilliant as ever. Then there's random great appearances from Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Camryn Manheim, Jared Harris, and even Marla Maples (Donald Trump's ex-wife, who's made a career out of trashing him... and men in general).

Some people couldn't believe how he centered an emotional plot around a child molester, but he does, and it works. Baker's troubled doctor is an amazingly complex character. He's a shrink who has to see his own shrink. He has the ideal family life in the suburbs - a big house, a loving wife, and two sons. He just has one problem - he loves little boys. Solondz doesn't hold back in showing how much Baker desires children. Despite this, he is a solid father and devoted husband, trying to overcome his secret. Instead of just labeling him as a pedophile and a monster, Solondz shows him as a mostly good guy with a devastating problem. He's even very touching in his talks with his eldest son, who is hitting puberty. He gives him sound advice on girls and not worrying about his bodily changes. These talks might sound creepy in the context of Baker's secret desire, but they're not. He really cares. But he is a pedophile, and when his son brings a friend over, Baker can't help but seduce him in a scene that is alternating disturbing, sad, suspenseful, and weirdly funny. His son unknowingly tips him off to another vulnerable child. In the end, Baker ruins his ideal life by submitting to these desires, and in a wrenching admission, tells his son, "I just couldn't help myself."

This plot is underscored by the subplot with Hoffman, the acting genius. He's a pervert, but unlike Baker, he doesn't have an ideal life. He has an annoying office job and a crappy apartment in Jersey. He's relegated to making dirty phone calls to random women and spying on Boyle, who lives in his complex. He wants to be a stud, but the only person who shows any interest in him is Manheim, sweet but overweight, and he feels miserable. He's aware, though, of the irony of life, that he is seen as a freak and made fun of, while people with worse problems than him (like Baker) get by. He also knows that Boyle is a fraud, and wants to teach her reality. But when he confronts her, he realizes that he can't be who he imagines to be.

This film had mixed reactions, as parents and conservatives hated it while critics and festivals ate it up. It ended up being one of the best-reviewed films of 1998 (even Roger Ebert loved it), but a lot of people haven't watched or even heard of it because of its dark subject matter. Still, it confirmed Solondz as a powerful filmmaker, and not just a one hit wonder. He had the chance to do something big after two impressive indie hits.

But again, he didn't want to do anything big. For his next film, he kept pushing the envelope. He came up with an elaborate idea for a film with three stories, each adding to the idea of storytelling. He simply named this project Storytelling to emphasize that. He managed to get a few name actors, but still ignored a chance to go Hollywood.

He ran into problems, however, when one of his stories included a risque gay sex scene, and the actor involved was James Van Der Beek. Remember, this was right after Varsity Blues, and VDB was hoping he could jump from Dawson's Creek to stardom. Some execs didn't want it tarnishing his image, and the whole segment was never finished. Thus, Solondz had only two segments left. He named them "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction," and they mirrored each other.

In the first part, a girl struggles to write anything decent in her college fiction writing class. One night, she meets up with her gruff professor at a bar and ends up sleeping with him. He's black and admits to loving little white girls. She uses this as her next story in class, to try and embarrass him. But the students don't really care and reject it anyway. As he tells her, "It doesn't matter if it really happened. It has to be a good, realistic story."

In the second story, Paul Giamatti plays a struggling documentary filmmaker. He's a bit of a loser, trying to find a good subject for his next film. He interviews a slightly dysfunctional Jewish family living in New Jersey (sounds familiar, right?). The parents (John Goodman and Julie Hagerty) are nice but completely stupid suburbanites who are just trying to live out the perfect American dream. They don't connect with their three sons: the eldest one is a jock, the middle is a slacker, and the youngest is an overlooked nerd dying for attention.

Giamatti begins focusing on the middle one, a dreamer without any motivation (Mark Webber). He wants to be a comedian or a writer, but doesn't have the skills or knowledge. Giamatti ignores the youngest son as he tries to get attention, and when the eldest son hurts himself playing football, the parents ignore him too. The snubbed kid then makes plans to hypnotize his dad, fire the maid, and take over the house. This starts an interesting path that many people questioned, but it mirrors the first story in its practice.

After the very mixed reviews for Storytelling, Solondz took a break. He had lost a lot of the momentum that his first two films had built up. When he announced plans to make a movie about a teenage girl dealing with abortion, he had a tough time finding producers. It's funny to think about this in light of Juno's success. These are two very different approaches to a similar topic, despite them both being labeled as offbeat indies. Besides using a controversial subject, Solondz furthered scared potential investors by taking sides on the issue, calling abortion doctors "brave." He also announced a daring casting move - the main character would be played by several people. As you might guess, no one was eager to sign up. So with no help, Solondz invested much of his own money into the project and basically made it by himself.

The result is Palindromes, released to very few theaters in 2004. Once again, he did not pull any punches. The film follows Aviva, a suburban New Jersey (again) teenage girl who gets pregnant. Her parents (including mother Ellen Barkin) suggest getting an abortion, and she does, but she feels guilty about it. She runs away and ends up at a foster home for disabled children. It seems like a great place, but the right-wing Christians who run it are also big abortion haters. She realizes that their doctor pal can tell she's had one, so she aspires to get out of there. She hitches a ride with a disturbed child molester whom the Christians have hired to kill prominent abortion doctors. After an affair, she leads him back to the doctor in the fancy neighborhood who performed her abortion. He kills the doctor, a daughter, and himself. Aviva is reunited with her family, but it's clear she will never be the same.

The film ignited ciriticism not just for its controversial topic, but its daring approach. Solondz insisted that the actress playing the main character would change in each chapter of the film. Eight different actresses were used for Aviva, and not just girls who looked like each other. Several were white girls who looked about 13, which is how the character is most likely supposed to be. But there was also an 8 year old black girl, a 30 year old heavy-set black woman, a 12 year old boy in girls' clothes (though he didn't speak), and 40-something star Jennifer Jason Leigh. This mixture was supposed to show how Aviva could be any girl, but many critics were confused by the move. Some complained that the right-wing Christians were stereotypical, but their foster family is arguably the happiest one Solondz has ever shown. Solondz shows a lot of sides to the argument: Aviva is wrecked with guilt after the abortion; her parents are sensible and caring but maybe too forceful is deciding her fate; the molester is obviously mentally challenged and manipulated by the Christian activists - not just a typical redneck; and the abortion doctor is pushy, but is also revealed as a father and loving family man just before he dies. Aviva's strange conversations with the boy who impregnated her, her cousin (who may be a sex offender), and the molester show her unease with life. It's an odd mix, but certainly daring and artistic.

After sinking much of his life savings into that project, it's hard to believe that Solondz made out well. Rentals have probably helped, but some wondered if it was his last film. As of now, he is trying to put together a new project. Rumors suggest it may be a follow-up to Happiness, or at least be about misfits in New Jersey, like always. Solondz did make a quick tie-in to Welcome to the Dollhouse at the beginning of Palindromes, where he hinted that Aviva is a cousin of Dawn Weiner, and that the old protagonist killed herself (making her one of the most tortured characters in any film series). Casting rumors have swirled from Paul Ruebens (likely) to Paris Hilton (possibly a joke but don't rule it out), but whatever happens, it's clear Solondz is up for anything.

Todd Solondz is truly an original mutant having never been intended for mass production. This daring filmmaker has taken the less popular road time and time again in his career, and made some of the most interesting films of the past decade. I urge all film fanatics to search him out if they haven't yet.

by Justin Leo

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