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The smartest misanthrope on the celluloid block, Todd Solondz's follow-up to "Happiness" is a characteristically dark, barbed journey into the dark heart of the human soul. Like his previous work, "Storytelling" is characterised by its provocative taboo-tackling and a deep vein of rich, black humour.
Structurally it's a film of two halves; the first, Fiction, is set on a college campus in the mid-80s and concerns a student, Vi (Blair), who refuses to listen to the latest, indulgent opus of her disabled boyfriend, Marcus (Fitzpatrick).
Back in the creative writing class run by black Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Mr Scott (Wisdom), Marcus's work is scathingly dismissed. Vi later meets Mr Scott in a bar, the episode later forming part of Vi's latest fiction.
The second story, Nonfiction, is set in present day New Jersey, and follows the attempts of aspiring film maker Toby Oxman (Giamatti) to make a documentary about the high school experiences of Scooby Livingston (Webber). As the cameras roll, Toby sees the Oxman family slowly disintegrate.
Accorded a muted reaction at Cannes, where the director was accused of deliberately courting controversy, "Storytelling" is still a compelling, if damning and willfully extreme portrait of the mores of 21st century humanity. No one and nothing is spared the director's scalpel-sharp perceptions.
Of the two sections, the second is undoubtedly the weaker and, as a work, "Storytelling" marks no real progression in the director's career. However, Solondz's willingness to say and film the unthinkable is to be admired. One can only hope that rumours of a premature retirement from film making are unfounded.
