Storytelling(2001)

Submitted by SpongeWorthy

The movie is divided into two sections: “Fiction” and “Nonfiction.”

Fiction:
The opening scene is Vi (Selma Blair) having sex with her boyfriend, who has cerebral palsy. He keeps asking her if he can read her his story, but she tells him to wait until their common writing class. He then accuses her of not being interested in him anymore because she doesn’t sweat during sex.

They go to their writing class, and the boyfriend is reading his story, which is awful. All the kids in the class are comparing him to famous writers with disabilities until Catherine, the class brain, speaks up. She insults the piece, the first one to do so. Then Robert Wisdom, a large, ominous-looking black man (the professor), basically verbally destroys it.

Vi and her boyfriend run out, accusing her of lying to him and wanting to sleep with the professor. The fight continues over the phone, and they seemingly break up.

Vi goes to a bar and runs into the professor. She joins him, and he tells her she would never make a good writer.

The two end up back at his apartment, where she freshens up in the bathroom. She finds photographs of a naked Catherine, as well as several girls naked in quite pornographic positions. She whispers to herself, “Don’t be a racist.”

She comes back in. He’s lying on the bed. He tells her to take her top off, which she does. He tells her to take the rest off, and she does. He tells her to turn around and bend over, and she does. He begins to have anal sex with her, and a big red rectangle shows up on the screen, covering the two. The camera zooms in to a closeup, and he tells her to say, “N****r, F*** me hard.” She is hesitant at first but ultimately screams it.

She goes back to her boyfriend’s, crying, and he asks why she’s sweaty.

The final scene is back in the classroom, with her telling this story as if it was a rape. Everyone in the class calls the story self-indulgent, a lie, wishful thinking, and misogynistic. Vi finally yells out that it’s true. No one believes her.

Finally, the professor has the last word. “Anything you write down as a story is fiction. But at least your story now has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

Nonfiction:
Paul Giamatti is a shoe salesman and wannabe documentarian. He calls a former high school friend, and we realize what a loser he is. He wants to be famous and direct a documentary on high schoolers.

He finally stumbles upon this kid named Scooby.

(Here’s where we get complicated, so I’ll separate the stories until the end)

Scooby is a pothead who doesn’t want to go to college. He wants to be a talk show host. He causes a lot of trouble, justifying Hitler’s actions, writing “F*** this Sh**” on the SATs, and lying about his bisexuality. He has a fantasy life, with Conan O’Brien doing a hysterical cameo and Scooby being his sidekick.

Brady is his masculine younger brother, who plays football.

His other younger brother is incredibly precocious.

His parents (John Goodman and Julie Hagerty) are pretty preoccupied with themselves and yelling at him.

Consuelo is their El Salvadoran maid, who is sad all the time

Throughout this story, Brady gets into an accident at football practice and ends up in a coma.

Consuelo reveals to the youngest son that her grandson was just executed for rape and murder.

The youngest son hypnotizes his dad: “Stop being sad about Brady, consider him the favorite son, and fire Consuelo because she is lazy (which isn’t true at all).”

The dad does all that, including firing Consuelo. But the youngest kid is happy.

The filmmaker keeps wanting a screening of the film and becomes more obsessed with the movie’s being funny and successful than with its being honest.

Scooby wants to see the film and leaves his home to find the movie. He ultimately walks into the screening, finding an audience laughing hysterically.

The youngest kid sleeps with his parents because he fears something.

Consuelo then comes back to the house, sneaks in, turns off the pilot light, and opens all the gas in the house. She leaves the parents and the two youngest sons there.

Scooby returns the next day to find the rest of his family being wheeled out in body bags. The filmmaker runs up with a camera, saying how sorry he is for the family.

“Why?” Scooby responds. “Your film’s a hit!.”