Barnes & Noble

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Welcome to the Dollhouse is one of the most hilariously scathing depictions of preteen angst on film, and it catapulted its young writer-director, Todd Solondz, into the indie spotlight. Heather Matarazzo gives a knock-out performance as the film's heroine, Dawn Weiner. Angry, vulnerable and desperately looking for love, the bespectacled Dawn is a supremely geeky outcast and the victim of an endless stream of attacks. These come from her schoolmates who torture her mercilessly in the hallways between classes (her nickname is Wiener Dog) and her insensitive parents, who obviously favor Dawn's petite and adorable little sister -- a demon in a tutu whose perfection is a constant torment to Dawn. Solondz (who went on to direct the controversial Happiness) is a master at deadpan suburban anomie; his tacky middle-class environments are as ugly and ridiculous as his characters and their behavior. Anyone who has suffered the slings and arrows of preadolescence will identify with equal measures of horror and laughter.

All Movie Guide

Twelve-year-old Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is perhaps the most put-upon adolescent in film history in Todd Solondz's bitterly hilarious black comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse. Dawn is bright but awkward, both physically and socially, and is appallingly unpopular among her peers, to whom she's better known as "Wienerdog." Possessing little charm or grace and perhaps the most misguided fashion sense of her generation, Dawn is not an easy girl to like and practically no one seems interested in making the effort. If life is tough for Dawn at school, it's hardly any better at home. While her folks dote on her gratingly cute younger sister Missy (Daria Kalinina) and look with pride to her bookish older brother Mark (Matthew Faber), Dawn is either ignored or treated as an annoyance. Dawn has developed a crush on Steve (Eric Mabius), the hunky guitarist Mark has drafted into his rock band (significantly, Mark is less interested in making cool noise or unloading teenage angst than in having another extracurricular activity to put on his college applications); Steve is polite but obviously not interested in her. However, Dawn has attracted the attention of a boy at school -- Brandon (Brendan Sexton), a mean-spirited junior thug whose idea of a good time is threatening Dawn with rape. A painfully accurate account of life in junior high (what Matt Groening called "the lowest pit of hell"), Welcome to the Dollhouse is also very funny, but writer and director Todd Solondz never lets the film's humor dilute the agony of its leading character; anyone who has ever been 12 years old will doubtless laugh at Dawn while uncomfortably recalling the horror of their own preteen years. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 043396825697
• Source: SONY PICTURES
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1), Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Pan & Scan, Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital, stereo
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español
• Time: 1:27:00
• Sales Rank: 27,167

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