A diptych by Todd Solondz, composed of one part called "Fiction" and another part called "Nonfiction." (The first revolves around a Creative Writing class, the second around a documentary film: equally fictitious.) Both parts permit Solondz to re-echo some of the accusations -- an "ugly" comment in part one, a "glib and facile" comment in part two -- thrown at his two previous films, Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse. One only wants to point out that to parrot these accusations is not to answer them. (Unless maybe you're eight years old.) And an awareness of what he is up to, a self-consciousness about it, does not substantially alter it. He is drawn to squalid characters, and he is condescending to them. Of course it could be said in his defense (inasmuch as he himself hasn't said it on screen) that squalor is as legitimate a subject as, and perhaps intrinsically a less dull subject than, wholesomeness. And condescension is just the other side of the coin from glorification, and no more unpardonable an artistic sin. But while there is something bracing about the presentation of special-interest groups -- the African-American, the handicapped, the modern liberated woman, the Jew, the homosexual, the Salvadoran refugee -- without the usual cushion of courtesy and deference, without politesse, without kid gloves, there is nonetheless something relentless and tactless about the way Solondz goes at it. The over-obvious provocateur runs the risk of becoming an unprovoking provocateur: the prospective provokee, if that's the term, will be over-ready for him. Selma Blair, Robert Wisdom, Mark Webber, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Julie Hagerty. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd