The films of Todd Solondz (
Welcome to the Dollhouse,
Happiness,
Storytelling) read the same forward or backward -- they rub the grotesque in our faces, the better to see ourselves, my dears. His latest shocker, the startling and powerful
Palindromes, casts eight actors to play Aviva, the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who runs away from home after her mother (a superb Ellen Barkin) talks her into an abortion. The actors range from Emani Sledge, 6, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, 43, to a preteen boy