REVIEW: Welcome to the Dollhouse

The disconnect between reality and entertainment can be a fascinating pitfall to watch a film circumvent. Coming-of-age stories all but rely on being relatable to their audience, yet there has to be some element of exaggeration in order for the plot and characters to come off as engaging and entertaining. You definitely can make a film that's essentially a 1:1 portrait of everyday life, but it's then that you start to stray into mumblecore territory; while there's nothing particularly wrong with that genre as a whole, it's far from what most would consider conventionally entertaining. At the same time, placing too much stake in caricature and entertainment value can result in something too absurd for audiences to connect with; a fun time, but nothing more. Adolescence is a time mired in profanity and sex and a seemingly unbridled capacity for cruelty, yet these elements of the human experience are frequently watered-down into something more palatable for general audiences (not to mention the MPAA). We get no such worries with Todd Solondz' 1996 directorial debut, Welcome to the Dollhouse, a film that just toes the line of absurdity to the point of matching up perfectly with our collective recollections of middle school.

This is a film that, despite a solid pace and well-organized structure, doesn't have much of a plot. We're simply given a glimpse into the tumultuous life of eleven-year-old Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo); with a name like that, we can imagine the hell she is forced to endure day in and day out at school. It certainly doesn't help that she's gawky, immature, and all-around unpopular. We would hope that poor Dawn is offered some respite in her own home, but no dice; she's the oft put-upon middle child, sandwiched between an overachieving big brother (Matthew Faber) and a tooth-achingly adorable little sister (Daria Kalinina). Like so many her age, Dawn is trapped in that dead-zone between childhood and adolescence; she wants to be popular, but she also doesn't care for the social politics that dictate daily life at school and would much rather just play in her clubhouse. She finds herself at an age where being yourself is the easiest way to become a target and retaliation against injustice is discouraged at every turn. I can remember being told in school that, if we were ever being bullied, the LAST thing we should do is fight back (I'd later learn this was especially true if said bully was someone with authority over you, like say, a second-grade teacher). Fortunately for me, my parents instilled in me what a load of bull that was ("you'll get in trouble at school, but we promise you won't get in trouble with us"); unfortunately for Dawn, she lacks any such support system at home. No matter where she goes or what she does, this is a kid stuck in her formative years who simply can't get no satisfaction.

I feel it's inevitable (when talking about this film about a bullied and neglected young girl) to not draw some comparisons to Carrie. I've only just watched Welcome to the Dollhouse recently and have already recommended it to friends as "like Carrie, if Carrie didn't have her powers". It gets the job done, but the film is really so much more than that. The thing about Carrie in comparison to Dollhouse is that Carrie White is a character who finds herself very much in a "horror movie" situation. This is where that exaggeration I mentioned before comes in, in the form of situational hyperbole; her mother is a religious fanatic who locks her in a prayer closet, she's outright assaulted by all the popular girls at her school, and this all comes to a head with a telekinetic cocktail of death and destruction. As relatable as the themes are, it's still a fantastical situation; not everyone has been pelted with tampons in the locker room showers or doused in pig's blood at their prom. Everyone, however, has been called a name at some point in their life. Everyone has suffered the pain of being someone's second choice. Everyone has buckled under the pressure and said something they'd later regret. Despite being a more grounded portrait of the adolescent experience than Carrie, Welcome to the Dollhouse is, in some ways, a horror movie in its own right.

It's this kind of raw, complex humanity that makes this film truly shine. Dawn often comes off like a chosen martyr, suffering the slings and arrows of her ruthless classmates and her loathsome mother. Yet at the same time, she's far from innocent. Hers is a character with deep flaws who, like so many kids, will lash out when she doesn't fully understand how to process her emotions. In one particularly brutal scene, we see her viciously admonish her best (and only) friend, assuming that he can't hear her over the phone. Of course, he hears the whole thing and is understandably destroyed by this betrayal; we know Dawn doesn't really comprehend the power of her own words, otherwise she wouldn't throw terms like "faggot" around with such reckless abandon. But that doesn't exactly do much to lessen the sting.

We see these flaws paralleled with the character of Brandon, played by Brendan Sexton III. When he first appears, he's a clear and present antagonistic force in Dawn's life; a troubled and downright despicable young man whom we want nothing to do with. It was around this point in the plot that I found myself constantly hoping that Dawn would strike back against her oppressors; that she'd tell off her mother or fight back against the bullies at school, raise a little hell in the name of well-deserved retribution. But as the film goes on, we learn more about Brandon and come to realize that his situation, in many ways, mirrors Dawn's; he's just more comfortable with retaliating than she is. It's a thought-provoking revelation, in which we realize that this character we're made to initially dislike is merely acting out in the ways we wish our protagonist would. That "be careful what you wish for" mentality is an undercurrent throughout the entire film, and not once does it feel hackneyed or clichéd. Dawn wishes to be just like everyone else, not realizing (until it's too late, of course) that "everyone else" is a cruel, uncaring monster. 

The other predominant theme here is, above all else, dissatisfaction (take a wild guess what Rolling Stones song Dawn's brother is practicing with his band the first time we see her at home). The movie revels in bucking your standard coming-of-age tropes and trends, reminding us that, in real life, there isn't always a crystal-clear resolution. The nerds and geeks who get bullied day in and day out seldom ever rise up and gain acceptance from their peers, the maladjusted misanthrope rarely has a heart of gold, and the loveable loser typically doesn't get the girl. Lessons are rarely learned until much later on in life (if they're ever learned at all) and children, while innocent in their own kind of way, possess remarkable talent when it comes to abusing, ostracizing, and brutalizing their peers. Not to paint this film as bleaker than it is (the humor here is pitch-black, but it's by no means an unpleasant film to watch), but there are several moments where we think we know what's about to happen; "this is the moment where she gives a big speech in front of the whole school and wins them all over", or "this is the part where everyone learns their lesson and becomes her friend", or "this is when her mother realizes the error of her ways and apologizes for not taking her feelings into consideration". Time and time again, we're proven wrong. This is not a story totally devoid of hope or happiness or optimism (the ending is, like most of the film itself, almost sweet in a bleak, sardonic kind of way), but there are no easy answers or fairy tale endings to be found here.

While Solondz manages to relay this theme with admirable consistency and attention to detail, it also proves to be the film's greatest downfall. In keeping with the undercurrent of dissatisfaction, there are a number of elements here that fall flat, most notably of which is the ending. Again, while I enjoyed Solondz's thematic integrity in ending the film the way that he did, crafting an intentionally unsatisfying ending doesn't make said ending any less unsatisfying for the viewer. There are a number of plot points that are left unresolved, not to mention seemingly-major characters who simply disappear from the film altogether after certain points. It's understandable, considering that everything (from the story to the characters) is crafted to buck genre conventions and deny the audience closure, but making the film a less-enjoyable experience on the grounds that it's thematically-appropriate seldom ever works out in the film's favor. It's an idea that works in concept; looking back, I can appreciate making the entire film itself into a sort of meta-statement, writing characters out of the plot the second they cease to contribute to Dawn's story (not unlike how people tend to drift apart in real life). But at the same time, there's a part of me that was genuinely emotionally invested, so it feels as though the film gets in its own way in that regard. It's a double-edged sword to be sure.

Despite my hangups, I still found Welcome to the Dollhouse to be a fantastically-made film, holding back just enough to keep things from feeling unrealistically cruel. The end result is a biting, deeply-resonant piece of work that made me laugh and squirm in equal measure. It's the kind of film that inspires the kind of questions that keep you up late at night; was I the Dawn Weiner of my middle school, but I was just too oblivious to realize it? Or worse, was I one of the other kids, consciously making someone else's life a living hell just because that was how the law of the jungle worked back in the day? In a sea of films that aim to make us feel a wistful kind of nostalgia towards our formative years, Welcome to the Dollhouse serves as a blunt rebuttal, arguing that maybe we should all be glad the godforsaken ordeal that was middle school is long since over and done with.