DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER/PRODUCER
Todd Solondz
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Randy Drummond
MUSIC
Jill Wisoff
EDITOR
Alan Oxman
CAST
Heather Matarazzo (Dawn Wiener)
Matthew Faber (Mark Wiener)
Daria Kalinina (Missy Wiener)
Brendan Sexton III (Brandon McCarthy)
Eric Mabius (Steve Rodgers)
Will Lyman (Mr. Edwards)
Rica Martens (Mrs. Grissom)
MPAA rating: R
Running
time: 88m
U.S. release: May 24, 1996
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official site
Other Todd
Solondz films
reviewed on this site:
- Fear,
Anxiety and Depression
- Happiness
- Storytelling
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From the ashes of Todd Solondz'
ignored debut Fear,
Anxiety and Depression rose the phoenix of his second
film, Welcome to the Dollhouse. If not for the fact that
Solondz disgustedly gave up on movies (based on the studio hassles
on his first one) and went into teaching, he wouldn't have collected
some of the material that made Dollhouse a critical favorite
and rejuvenated his career. Life does sometimes work like that.
This may remain Solondz' most
user-friendly comedy, at least until he pulls a Straight
Story and goes G-rated or something, but it still couldn't
have been easy to market. The trailer made it look like the kind
of whimsical revenge-of-the-nerd comedy it isn't -- it included
all the funny scenes of junior-high hell we can all relate to,
but was careful to leave out the painful, uncomfortable bits.
Solondz' movies are really off-center psychodramas with occasional
comic relief. Anyone expecting a bouncy, colorful trifle about
a geeky girl who triumphs over her tormentors and gets the boy
will instead find a story that seeks uneasy laughs in a little
girl's kidnapping and a class bully's threat of rape.
Yet Dollhouse is consistently
funny, starting with Heather Matarazzo's indie-film-star-making
performance as Dawn Wiener, aka Wiener Dog, a tacky dresser and
wallflower with blocky glasses and a chinless overbite. Matarazzo,
in photos out of this character, is actually rather pretty, and
has a warmer smile than she allows herself as Dawn, whose grins
in her rare moments of happiness always look pained and desperate.
Still, Matarazzo fearlessly lets Solondz dorkify her and stays
inside Dawn's anguish and resentment. Dawn isn't a lovable martyr,
either -- she can be prickly, and often has heated exchanges
with her older brother Mark (Matthew Faber, looking like a young
Bill Gates) and younger sister Missy (Daria Kalinina) -- especially
Missy, whom her parents adore.
Dawn, who probably never expected
to give or receive romantic attention, finds herself at the center
of the weirdest triangle in recent movies. She falls haplessly
in love with Steve Rodgers (Eric Mabius), a long-haired high-school
hunk who sings and plays guitar in Mark's band. This part of
the movie is a little stale; it doesn't speak well of Dawn's
taste that she would fall for such an airhead, but then teenagers
usually don't get to pick the objects of their undying love (come
to think of it, neither do adults). Competing for Dawn's affections,
in his own bizarre way, is the loutish Brandon (Brendan Sexton
III), who torments her and says he'll rape her after school.
Yet we discover that Brandon's bully act is just that, an act,
and that he wants to be in her thoughts in some way, even dread-ridden
thoughts. (He doesn't end up raping her.)
Solondz puts Dollhouse
in neutral for a while, observing Dawn's misfortunes with Steve
and Brandon, and with her unsympathetic parents, who want to
tear down her secret clubhouse in the yard to make room for the
anniversary party they're throwing themselves. The last act,
when Missy goes missing and we're invited to giggle at her mom's
overplayed agony, gets a little iffy. But then that's the turf
Solondz knows best -- the stuff we don't normally laugh at, or
aren't supposed to laugh at. Dollhouse deservedly established
Solondz, seven years late, as a talent to watch. At its best
it's like the funniest yet bleakest comic book Dan Clowes never
drew; it would make a perfect double bill with Ghost
World, and I can imagine Dollhouse being a favorite
film of Enid and Rebecca, and vice versa.
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