Palindromes is director Todd Solondz’s most experimental work to date. It didn’t hit me as hard as Welcome to the Dollhouse or Happiness, but I admire the film’s bravery and unblinking humanity.
Solondz cast eight different actors (six girls, one boy and Jennifer Jason Leigh) to play Aviva, a young teenager who wants just one thing in life: to make a baby. After Aviva seduces a neighborhood boy, her mother forces her to get an abortion that goes horribly wrong, making her unable to conceive. But Aviva doesn’t know this, so she sets off on a bizarre journey to get pregnant again.
The most surreal part of the movie takes place at Mama Sunshine’s house. Mama Sunshine is a right-wing Christian who nonetheless shows unconditional kindness by taking in children nobody else wants. The Christian musical number these kids perform has to be seen to be believed.
Palindromes (a word for something that’s spelled the same backwards and forwards, like Aviva) tackles many of the same themes as Solondz’s other films, but this is probably his most important work because it explores the issue of abortion in such a fearless, nonjudgmental way. The actors who play Aviva are all extraordinary, and the film’s visual and narrative scope is remarkable given its microscopic budget. A challenging film you won’t soon forget.
Stephen Shupe is a Web writer, film critic and aspiring screenwriter living in Miami. He directed a handful of short films in college, winning a screenwriting award for the horror movie The Realm. Recently, he's gotten into the video-sharing business, and is currently at work on two film and play projects. 
I love this film.
In addition to abortion, I also thought it gave an interesting perspective on pedophiles as well.
Oh and my favorite shot is when Aviva is in the abortion clinic on the bed and it’s panning out as she’s laying there. That actor in particular I felt for. She just had such an expression in that shot.
“People always end up the way they started out. No one ever changes. They think they do but they don’t. If you’re the depressed type now that’s the way you’ll always be. If you’re the mindless happy type now, that’s the way you’ll be when you grow up. You might lose some weight, your face may clear up, get a body tan, breast enlargement, a sex change, it makes no difference. Essentially, from in front, from behind. Whether you’re 13 or 50, you will always be the same.”
Those are my favorite lines in the film. I thought it was a pretty bleak statement at first, but in a Q&A director Todd Solondz said it was meant to be liberating: “I’m not a genius, I’m not extraordinary, and that’s OK!”
Visually, my favorite part is the Huckleberry sequence. The kid on the boat, the wide shot of him walking through a field, the sheep - it gives the film a very strange, fairy-tale quality that I absolutely love =]