From the mouth of 6-year-old Emani Sledge the desire sounds just soooo cute, but when the next Aviva gets down to the business of actually getting pregnant, it ain't so funny.  Forced to have an abortion by her mother (Ellen Barkin, whose standard Soccer Mum features soon begin to look grotesque through Solondz's canny direction), she moves through a series of (mis)adventures in different bodies,  coming round again in a circle.

Palindrome, meaning a word which can be read both ways (like her name), literally means running back again, and this notion of a constant circle of inescapability is underlined in a speech by a nerdy cousin at her coming home party. Determinism is all - one remains the same and change or choice is not possible, we are what we are. Is this what Solondz means to convey by the use of different actresses, who despite our differing perceptions of them, are all portraying the same person? Or is this a Solondz joke, showing the reverse to be true, in that because we consider them differently according to how they look, there is no immutable self?

Who knows. The joy of this film, which is also the profound irritation of it, is that whenever one feels a point is being made, the ground shifts, and we just don't know where we are. Anti-abortionists and abortion seekers alike are coldly mocked. The cosy well-dressed middle-class milieu with its oh so sincere adults is as unlikeable and in its way as grotesque as Mama Sunshine's, the home which takes in Aviva (now the remarkable Sharon Wilkins, who despite being the biggest Aviva by far, is the most innocent and childlike, and brings echoes of Dorothy in Oz). This is a very disturbing place indeed. At first it's a seemingly good-natured household, where the disabled (illustrating children who might have been aborted) are living in a happy accepting environment. So why does one feel such gruesome delight at the spectacle of the all-singing, all-dancing troupe of variously-abled rejoicing in Jesus, or shiver as they sit round the dinner table talking brightly about their disabilities?  And even worse, why is it such a relief when one learns that there is a dark sinister side to this sunny world (appropriately revealed in the basement)? The other thought that occurs here is - what did the disabled child actors think about what they were doing?

There are quite a lot of laughs in this film, if you dare - but when I watched the cinema was silent - it's difficult to be politically incorrect in public. Sometimes you feel that Solondz dislikes his audience even more than his characters. He makes it very hard for us. Considering one of the less unsympathetic figures is a dim-witted paedophile murderer, you know it's not a film to warm the heart towards humanity. He has a cold eye for people, seems only interested in their weakness. Even Aviva, who is relatively sympathetic, but, interestingly, more so in some manifestations than others, is lampooned as a product of the 'all a girl wants is some nice cuddly babies' aspect of the Perfect American Family syndrome. She learns nothing, she changes not at all. Or does she? I don't know. I don't really know much about this film when it comes down to it, what it means, what it intends. I don't even know if it's a good film or just eye-catchingly smart-arsed, whether the multi-actress thing means anything or is a gimmick, whether it confronts us with our prejudices or feeds them. But that's part of the fun. Go and see it.

Seen at Tyneside Cinema Newcastle June 2005