We were asking just a month ago, ‘what the fuck happened to Todd Solondz?’ The provocative miserablist hadn’t directed a film since 2004’s straight to art-house-cinemas-only creep-fest, “Palindromes,” and that flick did so poorly, we wondered aloud if he’d ever make a movie again.
Well, apparently he is. For years now he’s had a “sexual obsessions dark comedy” incubating that he called, “Life During Wartime,” which was supposed to be a quasi-sequel/ companion piece to his creepy and critically acclaimed, 1998 pedophilia-sympathizing film “Happiness,” and this can’t be any other film than the same project, only now it actually has financiers (a new indie – gulp – company called Werc Werk Works).
Variety says the project is untitled, so perhaps he ditched the Talking Heads’-inspired title or is still searching for a better one (either that or the concept shifted slightly).
The trade also says the writer/director’s film is much like his past movies as its narrative relies on an interconnecting ensemble piece of weaving love stories, or a “group of struggling individuals struggling to find a place for themselves in an unpredictable and volatile world…the past haunts the present and imperils the future: ghosts circle and loom, trouble and console.”
The film is scheduled to start production in October and casting is apparently underway (which hopefully won’t be jinxed as production was supposed to commence three times before this and always fell apart).
Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens has been attached to the project for years, but it’s probably up to scheduling now (but he has all the free time in the world, no?) Other names thrown around for this film at one time or another include Hope Davis, Demi Moore, Emma Thompson, Kenneth McBride, Chane’t Johnson, Paul Dano, Renee Taylor, Faye Dunaway, and Dennis Franz. It’ll all be up to who’s available now.
In January 2008, Reubens told MTV that about the project and said it was being done in a “Palindromes”-like manner insofar as new actors would be standing in for old characters from the Solondz millieu. “It’s characters from ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’ and ‘Happiness’ whose paths converge. It’s all different people playing the same roles,” he said. “I’m playing a role someone else played in one of those movies.” (note Variety says nothing about ‘Dollhouse,’ but “past ghosts” could mean those very characters).
Even then Reubens sounded skeptical that the project would ever get off the ground. “If it gets made, I’m doing it – but I’m not sure. It’s gotten pushed three times. He’s had problems with the financing on it. To me it’s such a sad state of events that he can’t get that movie made. He’s such a talented guy.”
Paul, you better get your agent on the phone, your one comeback shot is currently open, but the way indie companies are going these days and new fledgling ones at that, he better hope they have enough money to take this thing through editing at least.
Sometimes we wonder if we’re only the ones on the planet that actually saw “Palindromes.” What’s even creepier/amazing about the film the contains teenage anal rape, retarded kids gleefully dancing and other trangressively predictable Solondz button-pushing moments is that I saw it with my dad and we both had to laugh at how uncomfortable it made us. Fortunately for me, he’s got a great sense of humor.