Review of Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996) by Cory T — 17 Aug 2008

This was Todd Solondz's first achievement as a director; it is a film that showed promise and an uncanny ability to wholeheartedly embrace satirical blackness that most directors cannot grasp. Two years later, though, Solondz released the mother of all black comedies and a near-perfect masterpiece that is extraordinary and equally unsettling. (Happiness).

"Welcome to the Dollhouse" dances that difficult line between bleak humor and downright meanness, though, thankfully, it never steps wrong. Since it is, for its own means, a perfectly executed exercise in adolescent turmoil, I would say it is solely the film's bleakness that keeps me a whole star shy of raving.Typically, perfect films are those that you cannot get out of your head and can watch compulsively and never grow tired.

Heather Matarazzo gives a performance that is both brave and brutally honest. Then again, the entire film is a brave and brutally honest project. Kids can be vicious, unblinkingly cold-hearted creatures and can potentially ruin another's life of self-esteem and leave scars that, although heal, never fully disappear. I remember them: those kids that were so desperate to feel superior they would make fun of you for the most insignificant, miniscule things. The problem with situations such as this is we are not equipped, especially at the unnaturally awkward age of 13, to maintain perspective and, thus, rising above the situation at hand. No, in those moments, everything that is happening is ALL that is happening.

There have been a few films that have centered on the struggles of adolescence: "Thirteen," "Kids," "Heathers," "Mean Girls," "Elephant." In their own special way, each of these films are exactly as they were meant to be and all make sound statements about the unkind nature of the (young) teenager.

The most successful characteristic of all of Solondz's films, though I have yet to see "Storytelling" or "Palindromes," is that he simply does not care if you like his movies or not. So often, directors make films that cater directly to their audience in the hopes of making the biggest box-office buck, curtailing the essence of plot or simple intelligence. Solondz makes films that are digressive and largely unhappy, but they are passionately his and exist in this grossly realistic universe that looks so much like real life, it is genuinely scary.

All film students should be required to view his films and study their concepts of reality versus some similar, yet less successful, films. The results could be extremely beneficial to the cinema's ability to speak naturally to an audience.