The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I bought this film completely by accident thinking it was an educational piece on how to tell stories. Turns out it was a film called "storytelling." As it turns out, it was an educational piece on how to tell stories.The movie is divided into two completely different and (more or less) unrelated stories. This is the only thing that kept me from giving it 10 stars, and in most cases, this faux pas (in my humble opinion) kills a film. But Todd Solondz pulls it off! This film uses characterful exaggerations to make its point throughout. The characters' emotional development in both stories is meaningful and their relationships are complex. This is particularly true of the second story, which takes its time and is at once candid and ridiculous. If you are on the fence about this movie, I think the one thing I can say that might change your mind about checking it out would have to be that it faces the truth and faces American issues as they are.Oh, and John Goodman is the man.

Having never seen a Solondz piece, an Italian friend though I should see this movie along with Palindromes.I was engrossed in the film by the "fiction" portion of the movie, which was graphic and fast-paced. The questions posed by the students were neither uncommon nor unpredictable; however, Catherine and the professor force the story forward by asking the hard questions and giving the hard analysis. A majority of the students are stuck in their analysis of the piece (much like most viewers and readers): It is realistic? It is graphic? Is it rape? ... but Solondz named this piece "fiction" -- though one could easily interpret it as non-fiction (with the exception of the readers/listeners presented by Solondz). Without the select words of two characters at two moments in the segment (totaling no more than one minute each) the entire "fiction" segment would go nowhere."because once you start writing, it all becomes fiction"Solondz then moves on to "Non-fiction." This segment was utterly unbelievable. A sociopathic 5th grader who manipulates his father, a homosexual teen with absolutely no psychological issues (or capacity, really), a filmmaker who settles for a clearly mundane subject, and a murderous maid -- all clearly fictional. Cliché mother, father, and brother figures aimed to fit the mold of non-fiction are tossed in with the unbelievable characters for some sort of contrast. However, the contrast is truly lacking without further probing of these characters. Again, I will point out that in the screening, the viewers (like most viewers and readers) are stuck in their analysis of the piece: Are their dreams realistic? Are they capable of achieving their dreams? Haha, simpleton.The biggest message I got from this movie relates fiction and non- fiction. Both segments conveyed a non-fiction story, but the first was received as fiction and in the second the viewers so distanced themselves from the subject that it might as well have been fiction.Overall, the movie confused me. I found most of the characters to be utterly unbelievable; I found the division into fiction and non-fiction intentionally deceptive; and I thought the bulk of the movie was anticlimactic and boring. I don't know how everyone is seeing an assault on political correctness. Vi was simply reflecting the racist (albeit positive) stereotypes her character has and was criticized for the assumption of the criticizers that her character was raped. I think everyone who has ever written about race has been called a racist. The maid was El Salvadorian... so what? The mother was Jewish... not relevant.4/10

Storytelling is an interesting film because it's largely a critique of how Solondz approaches his work. As the title says, the movie is all about the way he tells his stories. Most of the negative criticism of Happiness focused on the perceived smugness and harshness of the directorial viewpoint, the sense that Solondz was looking down on his characters and mocking them for not being as smart or as sophisticated as he was. I never thought that criticism was accurate: for one thing, I felt that Solondz brought out the characters' pain and emotional torment, especially the torment of the father, far more than most conventionally "sympathetic" directors do. But Storytelling takes the critiques of Happiness seriously and places them right at the center of the film. In the "Fiction" part of the movie, Solondz shows us the complexities of people trying to understand and exploit each other's motives and desires. If his vision of the Selma Blair character is merciless in exposing her pretensions and hypocrisies, it's also equally unblinking in portraying her moving attempt to find her own viewpoint in a situation that turns her against herself in the cruelest way imaginable -- by making her feel responsible for her own degradation. Just as strikingly, the film's second segment, "Nonfiction," shows an art-house audience laughing smugly at the family on display: a pitch-perfect version of how many audiences reacted to the family in Happiness. At the very least, Storytelling shows that Solondz has thought deeply about his satirical method. While his films will never be for everyone's taste, I think this movie demonstrates that he approaches his subjects in good faith, with an artist's desire to deepen our concern for each other by facing squarely and honestly some of our worst qualities.

the soundtrack for this movie was done entirely by Belle & Sebastian, but most of the songs recorded by them aren't in the movie. their full soundtrack is released as an amazing album.that soundtrack is better than the movie itself in many ways, since the moral statement of the film, about the power of art to distort reality gets lost in the spectacle of the movie. the unsuccessful film screening is a perfect summary of the whole film. not to say i didn't like this movie, i do. i just think that it has a muddled point and muddled execution, which is an interesting commentary on the ability to control your art and say a good moral message: life and art get messy and a real moral tale is hard to tell realistically.