Storytelling

Two typically dystopian tales (rumour has it a third was dropped): the shorter 'Fiction' concerns college kids in a creative writing class taught by a black Pulitzer Prize-winner who holds back neither from trashing their efforts, nor from seducing his students; 'Nonfiction' sees a nerdy loser attempt to get ahead by making a documentary about his former high school, focusing on the dim, TV- obsessed, terminal slacker son of a risibly straitlaced family. Cruelty, misery, stupidity and loneliness are the common currency, but the impression of déjà vu is compounded by the fact that the film's seldom as funny, moving or insightful as Solondz's earlier work, while hints of self-justification add to the air of misanthropic self-pity. Audacious, intriguing, peppered with good moments, but disappointing.