True to form, the most endearing character in Todd Solondz’s new film is an evangelical, child-molesting murderer. Struggling with his demons, Mr. Solondz allows “Bob” (Stephen Adly-Guirgis) a humanity he denies the rest of his characters. In previous films such as “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Happiness,” Mr. Solondz has shown an unusual proclivity for making despicable characters appealing. Here he shows that the reverse is also true.

He begins by killing off Dawn Weiner, the main character of “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” The protagonist of “Palindromes” is Dawn’s cousin, Aviva, an innocent youngster who desperately wants to be a mother. By 13 she is well on her way, but her mother quickly puts the kibosh on that plan, forcing Aviva to have an abortion.

Unaware that the botched procedure has left her sterile, Aviva leaves home to begin an odyssey in search of the man who will make her dream come true. Along the way she encounters a group of pro-life misfits who show her kindness while their cohorts coincidentally plot to murder the doctor who aborted her unborn child. After becoming an accomplice to his botched murder, Aviva finally returns home to continue her quest for a child.

Throughout the film, Aviva is compared – favorably and unfavorably – with Dawn. In fact, she is Dawn’s opposite. Experiencing the quintessential adolescent awkward phase in “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” Dawn was appealing despite herself. Though she exhibited malicious behavior – unleashing on her family the anguish of her own suffering – it was hard not to empathize with the tortured preteen. By contrast, it is almost impossible to feel for Aviva.

Mr. Solondz has chosen to portray his main character, through the course of the film, with no less than eight actors of varying ages, colors, sizes, and sexes. In his director’s notes, Mr. Solondz writes, “I wondered what would happen if I cast a number of different types of people as one character, a character who is wholly sympathetic.” This has backfired; the character is almost wholly unsympathetic.

Individually, many of the actresses do a fine job, and their different personas add depth to the underwritten character. Yet the beginning of each vignette is a relief – ending the oppression of the one that went before. Aviva’s pursuit of pregnancy is never explained, and she remains throughout naive, unthinking, and dim. Irrationally attached to childbirth, she lacks any concern regarding who the father is and how she will raise the child. Despite the fact that her obsession lands her in a number of dangerous situations, teetering near rape, Aviva soldiers on, learning nothing. A woman’s desire for motherhood has never seemed so inhuman.

To avoid devolving into mockery, satire requires an intricate knowledge of its subject. Mr. Solondz seems to know much more about sexual deviancy and East Coast mores than matters of faith and Middle America. This is why Aviva’s mother (Ellen Barkin), her cousin the accused child molester (Matthew Faber), and Bob, the actual child molester, are more developed characters than the believing Christians that Aviva encounters.

Has Todd Solondz ever met a Christian? The pro-life Mama Sunshine (De bra Monk), meant to be a foil to Aviva’s abortion-happy mother, comes close to being a naive fool – saved only by the deft acting of Ms. Monk. Perhaps because Mama Sunshine and her merry band of disabled adoptees lack the dark side of most Mr. Solondz characters, they end up looking like dupes – the men of the house are surreptitiously planning to murder abortionists.

Mr. Solondz has created an abortion movie that does not come down on either side of the debate. Yet he cannot comprehend both sides as human beings. Like a “Palindrome,” his film begins and ends in the same place. The moral of Mr. Solondz’s tale is that people don’t change, but this is one of many things he gets wrong: Before “Palindromes,” I liked his films.