Review of Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) by Spencer S — 03 Dec 2014

Director Todd Solondz makes independent black comedies that will make your skin crawl and your belly heave with laughter. He easily blends the horrible nature of humanity with its own absurdity, best evidenced by this film.

Heather Matarazzo plays Dawn Wiener, an unloved, bullied, tactless middle school aged girl who tries to find attention from her brother's bandmate, become popular in the eyes of her classmates, and be free of her mother's constricting gaze.

What remains great about this film, even twenty years later, is its unabashed, true portrayal of what it is to be an ugly duckling in a world of swans. Every character is well represented, realistic, and unpalatable in their own way: The misunderstood bully speaks in extremes, the mother is borderline abusive in her treatment of her least favorite child, the brother can only see what's important to him and not others' feelings, and the little daughter reaps the rewards of her mother's favoritism.

This is a film of extremes, but it isn't completely absurdist, and there's much to love because of that.