Classic Indie Review: Welcome to the Dollhouse
Quintessential Indie: Todd Solondz's First Film from 1996
Sep 24, 2008
Released before the era of the “big Indie flick” such as Juno, Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse doesn’t feature big stars or a marketably-hip soundtrack. What it does have is a unique and twisted vision of adolescence and sexuality that no large movie studio would ever consider touching. Heather Matarazzo, who went on to appear in the Princess Diary movies and Hostel II, stars as Dawn Wiener, a girl struggling with her family life, school life, and her sexuality.
Wiener Dog!
As though constant calls of “Wiener Dog!” at school were not bad enough, Dawn is the black sheep of her family. Constantly compared to her intelligent older brother, Mark, and her ready-made princess of a younger sister, Missy, Dawn constantly looks for an outlet for her need for positive attention. She finds it in Troy, the high school bad boy who is being tutored by Mark in exchange for singing in his band. After actually being relatively nice to Dawn, Troy becomes the object of Dawn’s desire.
Another Bad Boy
Though this crush obviously will lead to heartbreak, it still seems healthier than the relationship that Dawn forms with her classmate Brandon McCarthy, played by Brendan Sexton III. After tormenting her and her friends for most of the movie, Brandon tells Dawn to wait for him after school because he is going to rape her. Though he never follows through on his promise/threat, the fact that Dawn shows up attests to her unhealthy need for any sort of attention. These are exactly the outrageous moments that Solondz is capable of pulling off without any lack of verisimilitude. Though his later movies, such as Happiness and Storytelling, attempt these sort of interchanges between characters, they seem most genuine in Dollhouse.
True Cult Classic
Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse is a true cult classic, unlike those films that are marketed as an “instant cult classic,” which would appear to be a contradiction in terms. There was not the internet community that exists today in which to market a movie like this. It gained notoriety the old-fashioned way, by word of mouth. Of course, Solondz now have a built in audience and internet community to which his new movies are marketed and released to, but this movie shows the director for who he is: a provocative, insightful, and darkly humorous director who can craft masterpieces when not attempting to appear overly cutting-edge and controversial.
