Bienvenido a la casa de muñecas

Todd Solandz's first feature is a dead-on accurate exploration of geek childhood as seen through the bespecled lenses of the nerdy Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo). Dawn's rotten school life is compounded by the fact that an older guy at school is targeting her for extracurricular rape. He hasn't quite decided if he's really going to bury the sausage in Dawn, but he's sure getting off on the anxiety he's generating. At home, Dawn must compete with her cute, feisty, outrageously indulged sister Missy (the irrepressible Daria Kalinina), a beauty pageant wanna-be if ever there was one, and a mother she has a huge disconnection issue with. Dawn's life is such a living hell the rape looks like it might be an interesting diversion. Solandz followed this up with the terrific "Happiness", an exploration of a more adult hell. Though the subject matter of "Dollhouse" is incendiary, the nihilism is sautéed in the blackest of humor and deep sympathy for the characters. A true original.

Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is the awkward middle child and social outcast 7th grader. She's got the hated nickname Wienerdog. Girls call her lesbo. Not even the other outcasts like her. The teachers find her annoying. Her parents ignore her. Her mother favors the youngest adorable Missy. Her older brother Mark is a nerd but he's a driven nerd. He gets the popular hunk Steve Rodgers to join his band and she's completely infatuated. Everybody picks on her especially class bully Brandon. She has the Special People Club in the backyard with her only friend the younger Ralphy. Steve Rodgers is actually nice to her and she misunderstands. Brandon starts taking an even more intense interest in her.

Heather Matarazzo is amazingly awkward. It is cringe-worthy. Writer/director Todd Solondz is the king of the disturbing underbelly of society. The bullying is hard to watch. Dawn is not a nice girl but she is the clueless girl trying to find her way. She often hurts people just as others have hurt her. The movie is so uncomfortable that the audience has no choice but to laugh. And then it gets darker. Sometimes it goes over the edge like what happens to Missy. There's no real need to go that far but it's not a problem. At its center, there is the compelling Matarazzo.

... and I somewhat agree with another reviewer who said Dawn's teacher should be euthanized. Except euthanasia is a final release for animals to end their suffering. I expect better from grown women who should have more empathy, if not why are they in teaching? And Dawn's parents - they have no respect or regard for her as a human being whatsoever. She is just a disappointing outgrowth of themselves while they pay attention to Dawn's older brother Mark, who is somewhat like a teenage Bill Gates - an intellectual looking for activities to put on a college application to an Ivy League school, but with zero consideration for anybody but himself. They also dote on Dawn's younger daughter, who although she is only about eight knows she is beautiful and liked and uses it as a weapon against her older sister Dawn. She'll no doubt grow up to be married to a Wall Streeter and be president of her HOA, spending her days measuring the height of other peoples' lawns. So as for the parents AND her teacher - stake them out to an ant hill covered in honey. They deserve it.

Dawn Weiner is a 13 year old girl bullied by the entire junior high school, who write obscene things on her locker due to her unfortunate last name, throw spitballs in her hair, question her sexual identity to embarrass her, and even the tough girls confront her and assault her in the bathroom. She is safe nowhere. Nobody has her back and she only exists to be a source of mirth or scorn to everybody else. A less than. She talks to whoever will talk to her, including a boy who introduces himself by threatening sexual assault. I've heard some people say they "want to shake some sense into her". But she is 13. What do you expect of somebody who has her life as an experience of what the human race is like?

And then she strikes back, in what appears to be a small but passive aggressive way, and suddenly the film segues into an episode of Law & Order SVU, something Dawn was not intending. I'll let you watch and see how this all works out.

Dawn is a young girl who is bullied. Of course she is is clueless. She'll arrive at college clueless because she'll never have the confidence building experiences that would cure her cluelessness. This film is essential viewing but be warned it is an exhausting tragedy.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1996) **** Heather Matarazzo, Brian Sexton Jr., Eric Mabius, Matthew Faber, Daria Kalinina, Angela Pietropinto. Easily one of the best independent films ever produced. Matarazzo is brilliant perfection as 11 year old Dawn Wiener - Wiener Dog - who is trying desperately to survive the 7th grade NJ suburban hell with her existence as a gawky, nerdy yet smarter- than-the-rest protagonist facing every conceivable roadblock to hurdle including a dimwitted hunky high schooler and a seemingly threatening classmate (Sexton who is also great) who can't decide if he wants to "rape" her. Heartbreaking and all too close to the bone perfectly realized depiction of how judgemental we all are and just how harrowing adolescence really is. Dare not to be angered when her self-indulgent mother takes away her cake at the dinner table while the rest of the monstrous family greedily eat their desserts. Black comedy satire and documentarian genres blending seamlessly to a genuine masterpiece of poignancy sharply observant parable of anomie and angst by writer and director Todd Solondz (who won the Best Picture prize at Sundance). Wickedly funny and dead on accurate.

Grimly convincing portrayal of life in junior high school for the unpopular. If you aren't blown away by how realistic this is then you weren't unpopular enough: this is the real deal.

This movie strips away the rosy patina of nostalgia that covers most other films that portray the grim nature of childhood. I admire the film for avoiding the common trap of making the lead an innocent victim. Heather is, when the opportunity arises, just as cruel as anyone else in the film. The movie doesn't make Heather a child, but instead makes her a confused human being full of conflicting emotions such as hatred, lust, anguish and guilt.

I think to understand this movie though, you need to realize that you are viewing everything from Heather's point of view. Teachers and parents are ridiculously unfair, classmates are alarmingly sadistic, and you could point at some action and say, oh, I doubt that would happen, but there's a strong emotional truth; this is what it feels like to be an unhappy child.

When I watch movies about unpopular kids, I am always disappointed because their lives are better than mine was, and this is the first movie I could point to and say, if you want to see what I was dealing with in Junior High, watch Dollhouse. But while I always wanted a movie that shows the unvarnished truth, it is really difficult to watch. Although if you can make it through the first half hour it gets just a shade less horrific. And it does have a quirky sense of humor that lightens it some. I avoided this movie for years because I was afraid it would be too painful, and a friend said no, it's not that painful, and she was sort of right and sort of wrong. But it's definitely worth seeing.