WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE
A film review by Zak Forsman
Copyright 1996 Zak Forsman
I must say that I wanted very much to enjoy WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I'd watched the trailer and laughed hysterically at each line. However, in its full theatrical version, this film is a complete failure. DOLLHOUSE definitely has its moments, but mostly this film spent its time flip-flopping between attempts to be satirical and poignant--often failing. Writer/director, Todd Solondz, unfortunately has no ability to pleasantly mix the two sides it seemed he wanted to express.
The impression I had of the writing was that the draft used wasn't very far from the first one. Everything was presented as is, there was not one ounce of subtlety. Dawn Weiner, the young girl who's life is pure torment, at one point calls a bully a retard. Later, the bully, Brandon, takes Dawn to a junk yard where he plans to rape her. Instead, he tells her that his brother is retarded, implies his feeling were hurt and they start a relationship. As written, this scene was pulled off in the worst way possible because it suffered severely from clichi-itis. Brandon's character steps up to the fence, into close-up and makes his declaration, "...he's not in any grade, he's retarded." Todd Solondz assumes we'll start to feel Brandon's pain, however the scene is too contrived toward that expectation and it proves that Solondz thinks an audience will react to 'sad scenes' like damned, pre-programmed machines.
As a director, Mr. Solondz is rarely competent. Too often do we watch actors move for the camera. As in the scene I described earlier when Brandon walks to a close-up by the fence. This technique kills any possible sense of reality within the performances because we are too aware of their staging. I have long been of the opinion that actors are not a tool to serve the camera, but the camera is the tool to capture the actors' performances and even to add to it. All to often, I think, directors stage their actors in service to 'the shot' when they should be doing the opposite. A great example of this is GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. If you watch, you'll notice that director James Foley is moving his camera, not his actors, for effect.
The performances in the film are usually pretty good with a few exceptions and there's really not much to say here other than a few of the actors deserve the attention this film will bring--specifically Dawn Weiner, her mother, her brother, her sister and even Steve Rogers.
Lastly, there was a moment in the film where Dawn goes to New York to find her little sister. She goes to sleep and suddenly wakes up to see a man running down the street with her sister screaming under his arm. I remember thinking at that point that because this film had already lost all integrity, this dream sequence actually did tricked you only because something this ridiculously inept was possible within WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. And it is for reasons like this that I think Todd Solondz did a horrible job as both writer and director. He seemed desperate to shake our views of teenage life--to be an iconoclast--but fell into clichi, which I despise.
This film won best picture at the Sundance Film Festival and like THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN last year, they both proved that independent filmmakers can make films as cliched as Hollywood can.
Writing *
Directng *
Acting **
Ratings are based on the four-star system.
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