aus: http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue11/palindromes.html
"Todd Solondz made his film a palindrome—at every level—because as he puts it: “we are paradoxically always changing—we grow and we change—and at the same time, it is also true that we are not changing. Certain things yes you can improve, however there are certain things that we cannot, and we are better off if we can accept the limitations of who we in fact are.” This lack of change, failure of difference, is not just unilateral, restricted to our own individual evolution. Aviva, the adolescent girl (her name, need I say, is a palindrome?) is played by eight different characters, each sharing with the other the basic essence of adolescent vulnerability, although in every other way different: fat, thin, black, white, male, female red-haired, dark-haired, little, huge. The point of this Bunuelian trick is that this character is, in essence, universal, and that just as all eight characters are vaguely the same, so are we: inherently unloved yet hopeful, a universal flaw that we should accept."