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PALINDROMES

What You Need To Know:

In PALINDROMES, a quirky art-house satire, a 13-year-old girl named Aviva expresses to her mother her wish to have a baby. Her mother gives the appropriate positive response, but then Aviva fornicates with another teenager after he watches pornography. Enraged, Aviva’s mother forces the misguided girl to get an abortion. Aviva runs away from home (still seeking to get pregnant) and gets involved with an older truck driver, who gets killed by police. Aviva also takes up with a family of Christians, who adopt children, including handicapped ones, and use them to form a youth singing group to preach against the evils of abortion.

PALINDROMES is a humanist satire that mocks Christians and the pro-life movement and makes light of pedophilia and teenage sex. The premise of PALINDROMES is murky, and the director has seven different actors portray Aviva. This last decision is perplexing at best, and extremely pretentious at worst. Clearly, the filmmakers don’t have much moral, spiritual or psychological discernment, which goes right along with their lack of aesthetic judgment. A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards as well as forwards. PALINDROMES is putrid, any way you read it.

Content:

(HHH, AbAbAb, PCPCPC, PaPa, B, C, LLL, VV, SSS, NN, M) Very strong humanist worldview with very strong, but satirical, anti-Christian content that ultimately becomes full of politically correct negative stereotypes, strong pagan sexual content, including pedophilia, harrowing scene where mother forces her teenage daughter to have an abortion against her will (apparently hinting at the evils of abortion), but teenager’s efforts to get pregnant are ultimately mocked, and any moral direction the movie might take is inverted, as well as some positive Christian content uplifting Jesus Christ by family led by woman calling herself “Mama Sunshine” that degrades into a message of anti-Christian bigotry mocking pro-life Christians; at least 12 obscenities, three strong profanities and 15 light profanities, plus blasphemous tone against Jesus Christ and Christianity; police shoot pedophile to death and reference to teenager’s suicide; depicted fornication, depicted pedophilia of young teenager with older adult, depicted pornography (which teenagers watch), and reference to sex change; upper female nudity and rear male nudity; alcohol use; smoking; and, teenager talks of her desires to have a baby without talking of marriage, mother forces her 13-year-old child to have an abortion, and character says she thinks pedophiles “love children”.

More Detail:

PALINDROMES is the latest offensive movie from an avant garde filmmaker with a warped view of reality, America and human beings named Todd Solondz, who doesn’t know how to put together a sensible script, much less direct one.

In this one, a 13-year-old girl named Aviva expresses to her mother her wish to have a baby. Her mother gives the appropriate positive response, but then Aviva lets a teenage boy fornicate with her after he watches pornography. Enraged, her mother forces the poor, misguided girl to get an abortion, which ends badly. Aviva runs away (still seeking to get pregnant though she no longer can do so) and gets sexually involved with an older truck driver, who eventually gets killed by the police. Aviva also takes up with a family of Christians, who adopt children, including handicapped ones, and use them to form a youth singing group to preach against the evils of abortion.

The premise of PALINDROMES is murky at best, so murky in fact that some people who have seen it at film festivals think the movie presents a balanced view of the abortion issue, but others, including MOVIEGUIDE® and the star, Ellen Barkin (with whom we spoke briefly at the Telluride Film Festival), think the arch tone of the piece ultimately makes Christian pro-life people look silly and stupid, if not exploitative. The movie also seems to mock the desire of young girls to become mothers (nothing is said, of course, about girls getting married before they become pregnant).

Be that as it may, the director has different people, including a heavyweight black girl, play Aviva. This decision is perplexing at best, and extremely pretentious at worst. More disturbing than this, however, is the apparent fact that the movie seems to make light of pedophilia and teenage sex. As such, the movie seems to represent the director’s own rape fantasies of pedophilia. Clearly, the filmmakers don’t have much moral, spiritual or psychological discernment, which goes right along with their lack of any kind of sensible, uplifting aesthetic judgment. Judging by the director’s last two movies, STORYTELLING and HAPPINESS, this media-wise judgment about him is becoming etched in solid granite.

Let us pray that the film festival circuit will stop supporting this man’s warped sense of cinema, until he repents and shows he can do something more conventional and less pretentious. There ought to be a law about young filmmakers. They should first show they can be successful at making a conventional genre movie for broad audiences before they start wildly experimenting with quirky, obtuse stories, weird characters, and sensational content for the jaded festival circuit.

A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards as well as forwards. PALINDROMES is putrid, no matter how you read it.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.