MOVIES: Palindromes (Todd Solondz, 2005)

Aviva is about ten when we meet her, shortly after the funeral of her cousin, Dawn (who was the lead character in Solondz' Welcome to the Dollhouse). Dawn has committed suicide, and Aviva and her mother are reassuring one another that Aviva will not turn out the same way. Dawn's parents didn't love her like we love you, says mom. Aviva replies that she could never kill herself; she wants to have lots and lots of babies, "so I'll always have someone to love."

Jump forward two or three years, and Aviva has -- in rapid succession -- gotten pregnant, been forced by her mother to have an abortion, and run away from home. She falls in with a creepy truck driver, then spends a few days with a family of Up-With-Jesus do-gooders, before returning home to the empty bland suburbia that is the setting for all of Solondz' films. And as the title suggests, we seem to have come full circle. As Aviva's cousin, Mark, tells her in what certainly feels like a Directorial Statement, "No one ever changes. They may think they do, but they don't."

So what are we to make of the fact that Aviva is played by eight different actors, ranging in age from 6 to early 40s -- several teenage girls, an obese African-American woman, an androgynous teenage boy, and Jennifer Jason Leigh? Damned if I know. To his credit, Solondz gets similar enough performances from his multiple Avivas that the transitions aren't as jarring as they might be; they all seem to be playing the same character, with the same flat, dazed, not-quite-there affect.

And there are also good performances from Ellen Barkin as Aviva's mother, who gets the movie's best speech, a viciously self-absorbed explanation of why Aviva has to have an abortion; and Debra Monk as Mama Sunshine, whose kindness and dedication to her houseful of disabled orphans is scary in its intensity.

Solondz is a polarizing director; he isn't prone to letting any of his characters be heroes or villains, and his view of the world can be relentlessly bleak for some. Palindromes doesn't give the audience anyone it can consistently root for, and it's not a movie for those who like tidy happy endings. But it's certainly never boring, and I found enough compelling moments to keep me watching, even if I'm not sure what all those moments add up to.