Storytelling

Name: Storytelling
Director: Todd Solondz
Released: 2001

4.00

Synopsis

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
I saw it a third time. By then I had moved beyond the immediate shock of the material and was able to focus on what a well-made film it was; how concisely Solondz gets the effects he's after.
75
Christian Science Monitor
Solondz is a courageous social commentator and a canny provocateur at the same time. He'll never get to Hollywood if he stays on this track, but cinema will be a lot duller if he ever mends his incendiary ways.
60
TV Guide Magazine
The film is all a little Lit Crit 101, but it's extremely well played and often very funny. But beware: Solondz uses humor as a booby trap, so be careful what you laugh at.
60
Time
Does Solondz feel remorse for libeling his own kind? He might need to if his portraits didn't have the gift of dark wit, the ring of social truth. One makes allowances for a master storyteller.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Solondz should have called this one "So-So Storytelling."
50
L.A. Weekly
Storytelling is no more likely than "Happiness" or "Welcome to the Dollhouse" to resolve the question of whether director Todd Solondz is a serious artist or a nasty little man with a perversely glum view of the universe.
50
Washington Post
Satisfying to the degree that you agree, with Solondz and Thomas Hobbes, that life is on the whole nasty, brutish and short.
40
Wall Street Journal
A provocative but eventually dislikable two-part film that dares us to dislike it.