We start at the funeral of Dawn Wiener, who got heavy, got acne, got date raped and then took her own life, all before the age of 20. Everyone worries that the way they treated her as a child is why this happened. Aviva watches these discussions and, despite only being a teenager — she’s played by eight different actors of different ages, races, and genders, but is supposed to be 13 — she wants a child.
She becomes pregnant by Judah, a family friend, and her family forces her to abort, which ruins her ability to become with child. No one tells her that, however. She runs away from home, has sex with a trucker and becomes part of the Sunshine Family, an ultra-religious home for orphans and runaways run by a father who hires a hitman to murder abortion doctors. And that killer is the trucker that Aviva just met, who she is sure that she’s in love with, until he kills the doctor, his daughter and himself via suicide by cop.
Finally, she meets Mark, who is suspected of touching Missy — the estranged sister of Dawn — who tells her that everyone is programmed to be one way or the other, that free will does not exist. But somehow, she’s able to find Judah again, who is now Otto, and feels that this time, she has a child.
Aviva is played by Emani Sledge, Valerie Shusterov, Hannah Freiman, Rachel Corr, Will Denton, Sharon Wilkins, Shayna Levine and Jennifer Jason Leigh in this Todd Solondz-directed and written movie. Of the casting, Roger Ebert said, “Consider the pathos brought to Aviva by the actress Sharon Wilkins, who is a plus-size adult black woman playing a little girl, and who creates perhaps the most convincing little girl of them all. Or Jennifer Jason Leigh, three times as old as Aviva but barely seeming her age. These individual segments are so effective that at the end of each one we know how we feel, and why. It’s just that the next segment invalidates our conclusions.”
Solondz doesn’t make easy films to watch or get your brain around. Good.
This Radiance Films release has a 4K restoration from the original negative by the Museum of Modern Art approved by writer-director Todd Solondz. Extras include a new interview with Todd Solondz by critic Hannah Strong; Todd Solondz and His Cinema of Cruelty, a new video essay by critic Lillian Crawford; a trailer; a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Bence Bardos, extracts from the original press book, plus archival interviews with Solondz and composer Nathan Larson and a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters.
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