Movies You Should See: The Sad World Of "Welcome To The Dollhouse"

 

The 1995 film “Welcome To The Dollhouse” is one of the darkest coming of age comedies you will ever see. Unlike other coming of age stories, it refuses to romanticize anything, and instead focuses on the parts of childhood other films overlook. 

It is in many ways the anti John Hughes, as it covers many of the same aspects of Hughes, but skips over the fun of it all. 

The plot is about a 12 year old girl named Dawn, who is something of the forgotten child of her family. At school she is ridiculed, and even gets in trouble when she hits a teacher. She also has a crush on an older boy in the neighbourhood named Steve, an aspiring musician. 

The performance of Heather Matarazzo, at age 12 here, is very, very good. The material here is tough, and the film doesn’t offer anything uplifting, as the subplot involves the kidnapping of her little sister. Yet, she and her equally nerdy brother, actually don’t seem to overly care that her sister is kidnapped. Her sister, a dancer, is obviously the favorite of her parents. This film is refreshingly cynical. 

“Welcome to the Dollhouse” was given four stars by Roger Ebert, and used to run on the IFC channel a lot back then. It was one of the first films I saw that was a coming of age story that took a totally cynical take on childhood, which films usually try to find something good to say about. Not to say childhood is bad, but this was the first film I saw that focused on the downer aspects of it. It also captures how kids, even young ones, talk, and in a way adults often like to forget how they actually can talk.

There are scenes that are quite funny, but it’s also realistic and funny. This film is true to life. 

This film launched the career of Todd Solondz, who is known for dark watches, yet writes such good scripts that he attracts some big actors to his little indie films like Allsion Janney. He would go on to make “Happiness”, “Weinerdog” and “Palindromes”. He is considered iconic in the world of indie filmmaking. It’s worth a watch for a different type of coming of age tale.