After drunkenly confessing a love of wearing stiletto heels, comic book artist Mark Hogancamp is gay-bashed (ironically, he is not gay). The attack leaves him with what I (not a medical person) assume is brain damage, of which one effect is the loss of his drawing ability. Denied that, instead he channels his artistic leanings into constructing in his garden a World War Two Belgian village, populated with an Action Man-like doll as his own alter-ego, war hero "Cap'n Hogie" (who wears stilettos to "feel the essence of Dame"), and Sindy- or Barbie-like dolls representing various women in his life (his care assistant, a friendly woman in a hobby shop, a pornographic actress...) Using these dolls - often in scenes in which Hogie, captured by Nazis (representing Mark's assailants), is rescued by the women - Mark works through his personal demons and his photographs of the scenes give him a second artistic career. But his emotional equilibrium is threatened both by the arrival of kindly neighbour Nicol (who, somewhat unbelievably, does not find it remotely creepy when Mark immediately gives her her own doll equivalent in Marwen) and also by Deva the mysterious evil Belgian witch doll...
This is based on a true story, which may explain why we are spared the usual melodrama in which Mark's awful ordeal would usually be portrayed. Instead, he is presented as someone whose life has been severely affected by his assault, but who, as anyone would, is trying to cope and put his life back together: a couple of shouty episodes aside, he is a subdued, but not totally withdrawn, character. This, however, seems to result in a patchy performance from lead Steve Carell (in what I cynically imagine is the kind of role actors accept in the hope it will bag them an Oscar): whereas he is suitably gung-ho when voicing Hogie, as Mark I found his performance curiously detached. Of the other performances, the stand-out is Gwendoline Christie, but not in a good way: her Russian care assistant is so over-the-top it is as if she has just wandered in from a 'Carry on' film - it says a lot about her performance that she is more realistic when portraying a plastic doll.
Speaking of plastic dolls, the animated/CGI sequences are nicely done, both technically and also in injecting a little bit of humour into the film, while never swamping its central message of a man being forced to adapt to a change of circumstances that is not his fault. Ultimately, however, the quieter, real-life sequences - human interest drama I would usually appreciate - suffer in contrast to the colourful animated bits and I left the cinema undecided as to whether I had actually enjoyed the film or not.
