An interesting passage in J.R. Jones\u2019s review of Todd Solondz\u2019s Palindromes:<\/em><\/p>\n Solondz has invoked The Wizard of Oz <\/em>when talking about the theme of Palindromes<\/em> \u2014 there\u2019s no place like home \u2014 but Mama and Bo Sunshine\u2019s adopted family is more like the Island of Misfit Toys: most of the children suffer from some congenital affliction, from blindness to missing limbs to Down syndrome. Yet the family is so perfectly loving that for Aviva their home is a paradise. The Sunshines serve as a rebuke not only to her chilly mother but also to Solondz\u2019s mostly left-leaning core audience, who might be tempted to dismiss born-again Christians as idiots.<\/strong><\/p>\n To some extent the Sunshines are idiots: their breakfast banquet includes heaping platters of \u201cfreedom toast,\u201d and the kids collaborate on a Christian rock act called the Sunshine Singers, with prerecorded dance tracks to back their soaring harmonies and synchronized dance moves. Their production numbers are both funny and acutely uncomfortable: casting actors with real disabilities is nothing new, but collecting them into a horrendously tacky showbiz exercise can\u2019t help bringing to mind Tod Browning\u2019s 1932 circus story Freaks. I was a bit ashamed of myself for laughing \u2014 a combination of feelings that Solondz courts aggressively, though he avoids any taint of exploitation through his genuine tenderness toward the children. They\u2019re so buoyant, so kind, and so accepting of one another that their Christianity seems worthy of celebration, and the thought of aborting any one of them, as Aviva\u2019s mother surely would have, seems monstrous. It\u2019s the most daring and emotionally complex joke of Solondz\u2019s career, and I\u2019ve never seen anything quite like it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An interesting passage in J.R. Jones\u2019s review of Todd Solondz\u2019s Palindromes: Solondz has invoked The Wizard of Oz when talking about the theme of Palindromes \u2014 there\u2019s no place like home \u2014 but Mama and Bo Sunshine\u2019s adopted family is more like the Island of Misfit Toys: most of the children suffer from some congenital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1142,1141,1140],"class_list":["post-8182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-christianity-on-the-big-screen","tag-palindromes","tag-todd-solondz"],"yoast_head":"\n