Storytelling

Storytelling is a complex, difficult but utterly engrossing drama comedy from the director of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, Todd Solondz. Two separate stories make up Storytelling with the first 26-minute piece following the misadventures of Vi (Blair), her ill boyfriend Marcus (Fitzpatrick) and her Pulitzer Prize winning tutor, Scott (Wisdom). It's an extremely dark, harsh affair - Vi is subjected to a particularly vicious sexual encounter - but it crackles with invention and sheer honesty. The second part is the 60-minute, Nonfiction, starring Paul Giamatti as Toby Oxman. He's an aspiring filmmaker in the middle of making a film about disenchanted teens, who finds his own life every bit as vapid as those he is documenting. Boasting an exquisite script and some superb performances, Storytelling is another gem from the hideously underrated Solondz. The format - two short films in one - means that Storytelling feels a little fragmented, but it's still utterly superb viewing. A word of advice: the faint-hearted should steer a very wide berth.