The best thing about Solondz's films is that they're utterly unpredictable. You never know what to expect, hence along with the steady stream of very funny gags and situations, there is a certain tension, almost like watching a "comedy thriller". (A new genre perhaps?) Solondz veers away from the clichés of both mainstream Hollywood rubbish and lethargic/pretentious/mindless indie crap, hence keeps the viewer on his toes for the duration. In a sense, he is the "anti-Ephron". A deaf-and-blind person could foretell you how a Nora comedy proceeds - in every successive scene - in her terrible noraphronic cinematic turds.I'm not quite sure what Solond'z political leanings are. Chances are that he is yet another movie-making liberal (hint hint: he's a vegetarian, and his films are about middle-class suburbia), but he isn't a black-and-white, narrow-minded, dogmatic liberal who never analyzes anything, never digs below the surface, simply sponging in everything Michael Moore tells him - i.e. the stereotypical intellectually catatonic Leftist: lazy, smug, gullible, unable to learn. His cynicism regarding humanity isn't misanthropic, he simply tells is like it is (more-or-less).Besides, what's so bad about misanthropy? Marxism might seem (I underline "might") people-friendly on the surface, but deep down it hates every man, woman, and child. And because a skeptical view of man's alleged "inherent goodness" is NOT the foundation of all Marxist/Leftist beliefs, eventually Solondz might actually connect the dots and realize finally that left-wing ideology has no scientific basis, no roots in logic whatsoever, and contradicts his own views. He'll come around... if he isn't afraid to face the consequences of "switching sides". Of course, a problem is that most Americans only see two (extreme) sides they can join: either that of the Socialist, clueless, overly idealistic liberal whiner, or the side of the Christian fundamentalist wacko who considers abortion the burning issue of this millennium. There IS a middle road, you know... (well, a middle road that tilts toward the Right - naturally.) "Storytelling" has two parts, and while both are very good, it is somewhat of a pity that the first story was so brief. I got a great kick out of those English Lit class discussions, with all those hypocritical, cowardly, unimaginative, brainwashed college girls listening to the second essay, but pretending awkwardly not to know what or whom it's really about. It was extremely funny; these characters alone have the potential for a mini-series, let alone a 90 minute full-length film. However, these exploits end after a mere 10-15 minutes, to be followed by an entertaining saga of a Jewish family, their mentally unstable Putzfrau, and a nerdy, confused filmmaker wannabe. Great dialogue.One of the highlights is certainly the youngest Goodman son telling Consuela that the execution of her murdering/raping grandson was "possibly for the best".

After re-watching Happiness for the first time in over a decade, I decided finally to catch up with Solondz's two follow-ups. Storytelling finds Solondz in a self-critical and defensive mood, taking on both his own weaknesses as a writer and his critics, who were ubiquitous after Happiness. That aspect of Storytelling didn't really work for me, because, honestly, I don't find Solondz as shallow as many critics did. His characters are sometimes grotesque, but I think he does uncover some uncomfortable truths about people with his technique. Storytelling is comprised of two parts. The first, entitled Fiction, is really a short film. Selma Blair plays a college student who is enrolled, alongside her disabled boyfriend, in a creative writing course. Their professor is a cynical, controversial and angry black novelist. After their professor gives a scathing criticism of the boyfriend's story, he and Blair break up angrily which leads Blair right into her professor's bed. It's hard to see exactly what Solondz is trying to say with this story. It's easy to say he's just trying to stir controversy and make the audience uncomfortable, at which he obviously excels. But the thing is, the uncomfortableness only arises because the emotions of the film are so precise. The second part of the film, Non-Fiction, is a little stronger. Paul Giamatti plays a documentarian who finds his ideal subject in the form of pothead Mark Webber, a high school student who has no ambition. Whatever Giamatti does with his film, it seems like he's making fun of his subject. I liked this part of the film better, because it deals with a subject that I think about often, that being the way documentaries work. There were a few bits of the film that I didn't like, but mostly I found it pretty strong. The film is bolstered by original songs by Belle & Sebastian.

It's not so much that this movie chose to depict a rather nefarious view of humanity; it's that this movie eliminated the possibility of anything but in the world of the characters. If someone made a movie, in this day and age, in which all the characters were happy, secure, whole and loved, a lot of people would be bored. And say that it's not very realistic. Well I was bored. A deep and subtle boredom, that (upon waking) causes one to question whether they're bored; cause that would mean feeling something...when it kind of just feels like nothing.This movie was boring. And it wasn't very realistic.

I saw this film today in high school, at cinema class. tough my class is usually in a very high level of film understanding, I was surprised to see how pepole "didn't like the ending" and "tought the film could have used situations to make scenes more emotional", missing all the point of this movie.from my point of view, this film is about emotional disawarness to other pepole's feelings. it is screamed in the relationships inside the family, between the director and Scooby, and in every scene in the script. I do not want to make spoilers for the movie, but I think it shows clear at the last line of the movie."storytelling" takes what so many other movies (like "crash") tried to do, but do it better, with more depth, more meaning, more gentle treatment to the characters, just better. who ever saw it and did not think of the point of characters that are emotionally closed, I think should watch the movie again, because he might miss a spectacular work of cinema.