liambl Directed by the guy who gave us Welcome to the Dollhouse, Palindromes is a follow up to said film as it is set, I can assume, at least five years after. Dawn, the protagonist from said film, has apparently committed suicide. But that turns out to be a different story as we instead focus on her younger supposed cousin Aviva (played by numerous actresses throughout the film) and her misadventures.Now, as much as I hated WTTD, that at least had an actual plot. This, on the other hand, is the cinematic version of a plane crash! Many have praised this and God knows the reason for so. The plot, if you can call it that, is the equivalent of a train-track. The acting, what else can I say, other than the fact that it is awful, ungodly awful! I hesitated multiple times to watch this. But I thought for sure that there would be a ten percent chance that maybe I would like it better WTTD, man was I ever wrong. Because in my opinion, it was worse!

lorenolson21 First and foremost, do not watch this movie, it's terrible.With that said, there are actually a few positives and I cannot say Todd Solondz is a completely worthless filmmaker. His films are always interesting. So, here's why Palindromes gets 1 star as opposed to 0: 1. An interesting and thought-provoking examination of abortion. I like the way Solondz examines this issue from several different perspectives and leaves us with no simple answer.2. Some funny moments. I laughed about 2 or 3 times.3. Bold. This is the best thing this film has to offer. But, when a movie is boring and the story is stupid and the character development is weak, then boldness is basically worthless.So, to go into a little more detail as to why this movie sucked: There are three qualities that must be present in a movie in order for me to find it good. They are, entertainment value, an engaging story and characters that I feel emotionally attached to. Palindromes fails on every level. The two or three times that I laughed in this film are not enough for me to call it entertaining. This movie was extremely boring, I was just waiting for it to end (although I do understand that this is just an opinion.) I felt no emotional attachment to any character in this film. I own Happiness and found it to be a phenomenal and very entertaining film with interesting characters that I felt attached to. But the character development in Palindromes just didn't draw me in. I understand what Solondz was trying to demonstrate with Aviva being played by several different actresses. I assume he's trying to demonstrate how the issue of abortion affects several different types of people regardless of their race, age, gender (one of them was a boy) or size. I also assume that each actress or actor playing Aviva is a symbolic representation of Aviva's self image at the time. Plus, it reinforces the Palindromes concept that no matter how much you seemingly change you will always come back to your true self. But, after a while this tactic took away from me becoming emotionally attached to Aviva. It was just distracting. This is the type of intellectual approach that sounds good on paper but takes away from the viewer becoming emotionally involved. And finally, story. There was nothing engaging to me in this story except for maybe a thought provoking examination of abortion. Not good enough. With the distracting actress-changing, the lack of character development and the boring tone, I gave up on this stupid story pretty early on anyway.So, I haven't even started on how vile, deplorable and sickening this movie was. I'm just wondering how Todd Solondz convinced so many underage actresses and their parents to allow him to place them in so many sexually perverse scenes. I'm not saying this is child pornography because it isn't. But, between a child sex-scene pretty early on, scenes of pedophilia and child anal rape and a final child sex scene that is just shocking, it's pretty damn close. I completely support freedom of speech, thought, religion etc... and I am in no way disputing Todd Solondz's right to express himself. What I really want to address is the soul of our cinema and what we as free individuals allow into our lives. If we allow this sort of disgraceful material into our lives then we are allowing sick thoughts into our minds. I don't even want to think about what sort of sick thoughts are inside the mind of the individual that came up with this film and directed these scenes. And now I am exercising my freedom to say, I think whoever came up with this movie must be disturbed in their own mind. I actually kind of pity a person that is this disturbed. And the rest of you that think this movie is "Amazing" and "Fascinating" and "Beautiful" should take a second to think about what sort of sick thoughts are swirling around your own head.Here is a list of 10 extremely disturbing films that are actually watchable. Some of these films examine the horror of pedophilia in an interesting and non-exploitative manner. All of these films have characters and story lines that you actually care about and they all deal with very heavy subject matter while remaining intelligent, entertaining and objective. L.I.E. The Woodsman Gummo Irréversible Leaving Las Vegas Bad LieutenantA Clockwork Orange Blue Velvet Funny Games Henry: Portrait of a Serial KillerThese ten films have something very crucial that Palindromes completely lacks... a soul.

coreywparks Where to begin.... I feel as though my soul has evaporated from watching this movie. My friend and I were planning on watching a feel-good movie -- it was between step brothers, august rush, and this one. We thought, "any movie with cartoon back fat on the cover can't be that bad." Oh, how wrong we were. Now I am an empty shell and will not be able to sleep for a very long time. In fact, even our friendship is in question due to this movie, and we're not even sure why. There's just this air of...emptiness. I don't even know what to say. There's nothing left but silence. Thank you Todd Solondz for bringing meaning (or lackthereof) to my life. I can never look at a coathanger again. Amen.

Ami Kapilevich There are hints of classical allegory (see: Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain) to this intriguing, disturbing, difficult but ultimately triumphant film. I think that the use of several characters to play Aviva (meaning "Springtime" in Hebrew) implies that the young lady is mildly schizophrenic - something that was either triggered by exposure to sex at such a young age, or by the trauma of the aberrant abortion.The film jumps around a bit in time. Chronologically, it starts with the first sexual encounter when Aviva visits the younger Otto (palindrome), and ends with Bob (palindrome) getting shot by the police. The film itself splices a few scenes in between, beginning and ending with the young black girl 'character' who is perhaps the youngest and most innocent of the Aviva characters. I was blown away by the portrayal of the foster family. Had no idea where to place them. I think that ultimately Solondz is sympathetic to them, which gives the film an impressively mature and equivocal view of religious fundamentalists (but a deep, dark part of me had a good chuckle, too).More please, Mr Solondz!