Storytelling unsettles viewers

There are no easy answers to the questions raised in Todd Solondz's tragicomedy Storytelling. It is Solondz's third major film, directed in the tradition of his equally risky Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse, and has been selected for the Cannes and New York Film Festivals. Intriguing and disturbing, Storytelling is a darkly comedic exploration of the distortion between fiction and truth, and the subjectivity of perception. Pushing the envelope with unforgiving subject matter - sexuality, race and exploitation - the film probes its audience for a reaction and challenges viewers to question their feelings toward the characters. The film is comprised of two separate but thematically related stories, "Fiction" and "Non-fiction." In "Fiction," the shorter of the two, a black college professor (Robert Wisdom) coerces his white fiction-writing student (Selma Blair) into sex, resulting in a brutal borderline rape scene. To avoid receiving an NC-17 rating, Solondz chose to censor the scene with a large red box, simultaneously pointing a finger at censorship itself. When the student, Vi, translates her reality onto the written page, it is met with claims of "racism" and "feminine objectification" by her classmates, who prefer neatly packaged fiction to the rawness of truth. "Fiction" is a tightly-knit yarn that is simple yet devastatingly complex as opposed to its lengthier, less arresting counterpart, "Non-Fiction." In "Non-Fiction," a geeky shoe salesman (Paul Giamatti) decides to make a documentary focusing on high school kids in America, focusing on the disaffected senior Scooby Livingston (Mark Webber). He proceeds to capture on film the life of the Livingston family. Stereotypically dysfunctional, there are the overbearing parents (John Goodman and Julie Hagerty), the smart kid brother (Jonathan Osser), the jock brother (Noah Fleiss), and the overworked, underappreciated family maid (Lupe Ontiveros) from El Salvador. "Non-Fiction" begins on a promising note, but its potential is shortchanged by taking cheap shots at American Beauty and unnecessary self-reference. As it progresses, the story tries to tackle too many issues at once, creating a complex plot that explodes in a tragically contrived ending. But while the ending is an unsatisfactory one, no ending could single-handedly both satisfy and honestly conclude the story. In Storytelling, there are no clear-cut likable characters, and the shreds of humanity to be found are far and few between. Solondz pushes his audience to abandon its instinctual gravitation toward the "neatly packaged fiction" preferred by Vi's classmates and confront the ambiguity of reality, as uncomfortable as it might be. Storytelling is now showing at Regal Downtown West 8. Rating: B