Synopsis for
Palindromes (2004) More at IMDbPro »

The film opens with the funeral of Dollhouse's Dawn Weiner. Aviva is her young cousin who cannot comprehend why Dawn would have committed suicide because of an unwanted pregnancy because Aviva wants to be impregnated more than anything else. She soon finds a family friend, Judah, is more than willing to have sex with her. The parents, horrified to discover that their daughter has indeed gotten pregnant force her to get an abortion which, though successful in destroying the unwanted child, also renders Aviva barren. Only her parents are aware of this however, so Aviva soon runs away from home to find another potential father for her child. She befriends a trucker who is willing to have sex with her, despite the fact that she is still a young teenager.

The trucker abandons her at a motel and she wanders off into a nearby forest until she is discovered by a boy. The boy invites her to join his family at Sunshine family home, which is a foster home run by fundamentalist Christian extremists. While staying at the home, she discovers that the family assassinates abortion doctors and that, by coincidence, the hitman they use is the trucker who abandoned Aviva at the motel after having sex with her. Aviva joins the trucker on his new mission. During the assassination, he accidentally shoots the doctor's young daughter before ultimately killing the doctor himself. The police catch up with Aviva and the trucker at a motel and shoot the trucker after a brief standoff. Aviva is soon returned to her parents.

The film flashes forward to Aviva's next birthday where she talks with Dawn Weiner's older brother, Mark, who has been accused of molesting a baby. He expounds on his philosophy that no one really changes who they are in life, as much as they may try. Later Aviva reconnects with Judah, who now wants to be called Otto, and once again has sex with him. The film ends with Aviva voicing her optimism that she will finally have a baby, still unaware that she is barren.