WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE
A film review by Lewis Butler
Copyright 1995 Lewis Butler
In Short:
Director Todd Solondz has crafted a wonderfully biting
film, filled with all the horror and angst and pain that
is, was, and ever shall be Jr. High School. +3. where
is average and the scale runs -4 to +4.
WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE is a painful movie to watch. I found myself cringing in my seat throughout. However, unlike most films that cause me physical pain, WTTD is a good film. The pain comes from reliving Jr. High school, a fate that can seem worse than death.
The story, such as it is, revolves around Dawn Wiener, aka "Weiner Dog", played with near-tragic precision by Heather Matarazzo. Dawn is 11 years old, is in Jr. High, and her life sucks.
Dawn lives in a surreal version of suburbia. Her younger sister, Missy, is so pretty and perfect that the audience can't help wishing great harm to befall her. Her brother is the ultimate nerd, even to the point of trying to start a rock-band (drums, keyboards, and clarinet) to fill an extra-curricular slot on his college resume. Her mother hates her, and her father is ineffective. These aren't real people, these are caracatures seen from Dawn's point of view. Face it, all older brothers are hopeless dweebs to an seventh grade girl, and all little sisters are perfect and pretty and revolting. And all mother hate eleven year-olds, it's how the world works.
The audience is caught up in Dawn's view of the world, and Dawn's view is distorted by the sudden realization that most of use have had that life sucks. Life is not fair. Life, and especially Jr. High life, bites.
Spoilers
There's quite a bit of irony in the fact that Missy, who we all hate, becomes the focal point of the movie near the end. Here we've been, thinking, "someone should really strangle that child" when all of a sudden, there's a real possibility that someone might have. Director Todd Solondz (who also wrote, drawing on personal history) has set the audience up, fulfilling their wish, and turning that against them. We sit there, uncomfortable in our seats, and we identify with Dawn's feelings of guilt. She thinks it's her fault Missy is missing, but we know better. We know it's because of US. Because of our hatred.
It's a dangerous trick, making the audience feel guilty, but Mr. Solondz brings it off without a hitch. He makes everyone identify with Dawn. It doesn't matter if you were the most popular kid in school, you're going to identify with Dawn. Everyone felt like Dawn at some point in their lives. Maybe for you it was 6th grade, maybe it wasn't until your freshman year of college, but we've all been there.
-- Signatures follow:
Distribution of this message by Microsoft, its subsidiaries, or its software shall constitute a violation of my copyrights. Microsoft may license copyrights to my messages, for distribution only, for the sum of $1,000 US per week. -- kreme@cerebus.kreme.com 1015 South Gaylord, Denver, CO 80209 #100 WWW URL: <http://www.nyx.net/~kreme> [303/722-2009] Vox [303/777-2911] Data
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews