It has a beginning a middle and (most definitely) an end!

Another completely original, dark, deeply skewered and audacious commentary on society from Todd Solondz, whom we've come to depend upon for this sort of thing. Not as focused as "Dollhouse" or as filled-out as "Happiness", "Storytelling" does seem sparse, and that's one of the things I like best about it (I've seen it 4 times now)- how T.S. didn't feel the need to conform to what the majority of film goers (even his own crowd!) expect when they enter a theatre.

It's divided into two parts - Fiction, with its heavy sexual, presumably-racist and ironic elements, a searing affair that many people seem to have found offensive without getting the underlying satire, and then there's Non-Fiction; amazing how much spot-on societal jabs T. S. squeezes into this one, and plus it has another great, multi-layered performance from Paul Giamatti, always a major selling point of any film, for me.

The bottom line: I believe T.S. deserves credit for his audacity alone, his unwillingness to compromise his vision, however unacceptable it might be. Or he might be consciously tailoring his vision toward the unacceptable, sort of like Andy Kaufman did - getting off on just making people react, shaking them out of indifference. Or maybe, like some people have suggested, he's run out of ideas (or he peaked with "Dollhouse") and he's just rehashing the same stuff, hoping nobody will notice. Or maybe he WANTS us to notice, maybe it's a cry for help, in which case I would recommend a writing class, but not one that has Robert Wisdom as the professor.