The per­verse sub­ur­ban joys of Wel­come to the Dollhouse

Amer­i­can pupils are 12 years old when they enter Junior High. It can be a dif­fi­cult age – the cusp of puber­ty, where child­hood col­lides head-on with ado­les­cence, and some shoot ahead while oth­ers are left behind. Dawn Wiener (the extra­or­di­nary Heather Mataraz­zo, car­ry­ing the whole film in her big-screen debut) def­i­nite­ly falls into the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. Todd Solondz’s break­out fea­ture Wel­come to the Doll­house is an ago­nis­ing, unflinch­ing por­trait of all Dawn’s awk­ward­ness and indig­na­tion, as, in the stul­ti­fy­ing sub­urbs of New Jer­sey, she learns again and again that mean­ness rules and life isn’t fair.

No longer able to coast on cute­ness like her younger sis­ter Mis­sy (Daria Kalin­i­na), and not yet dri­ven by des­per­ate ambi­tion like her old­er broth­er Mark (Matthew Faber), Dawn is caught in the mid­dle, des­per­ate to be loved by her par­ents (Angela Pietropin­to, Bill Buell), by her school peers and by Mark’s old­er band­mate Steve Rodgers (Eric Mabius), but in fact treat­ed only with dis­ap­proval and dis­dain if she is noticed at all.

Dawn’s thick-lensed glass­es, hideous fash­ion sense and even her sur­name make ​‘Wiener Dog’ an easy tar­get for school bul­lies, and she is con­stant­ly, cru­el­ly attacked by oth­ers. Nor does Solondz’s screen­play eas­i­ly let her off the hook: for while we may sym­pa­thise to a degree with Dawn’s vic­tim­hood and end­less humil­i­a­tion, she is her­self rather unlike­able and more than capa­ble of her own cru­el­ty, giv­ing as good as she gets with bad behav­iours that she has learnt.

Dawn is a chron­ic liar, and lash­es out vicious­ly when annoyed or cor­nered. She casu­al­ly refers to her chief bul­ly Bran­don (Bran­don Sex­ton III) with an ableist term, not real­is­ing that the broth­er of this pos­tur­ing bad boy has a devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ty. She uses a hate­ful homo­pho­bic slur against her younger best friend – and only fel­low ​‘Spe­cial Peo­ple Club’ mem­ber – Ral­phy (Dim­itri DeFres­co) and she read­i­ly imi­tates the bul­ly­ing that she her­self suf­fers at school in her own treat­ment of lit­tle Mis­sy at home, in a con­flict which shifts from mere­ly mean-spir­it­ed sib­ling rival­ry to some­thing more like psy­chopa­thy (at one point Dawn holds a ham­mer over her sleep­ing sis­ter – although she does step back from the brink).

Here Dawn’s bud­ding sex­u­al­i­ty is as much a source of con­cern as cel­e­bra­tion. Set against a men­ac­ing back­drop of child abduc­tions and local pae­dophil­ia, Dawn pur­sues her pup­py love for sex­u­al­ly prac­tised, ​‘horny’ Steve with wor­ry­ing, cal­cu­lat­ed aggres­sion – and her evolv­ing rela­tion­ship with the slight­ly old­er Bran­don, as down­trod­den and alien­at­ed as she is and some­what sweet­er than he first seems, is nonethe­less punc­tu­at­ed by his repeat­ed threats to ​‘rape’ her (backed up with a knife). These kids’ pre­pu­bes­cent urges are in no way soft-ped­alled or roman­ti­cised, and while these dri­ves are not always pred­i­cat­ed in due under­stand­ing or expe­ri­ence, they are hard­ly inno­cent either.

Solondz cer­tain­ly knows his way around the tropes of a high school movie, includ­ing stock scenes in the cafe­te­ria, toi­lets, class­room, cor­ri­dors, assem­bly hall and principal’s office – yet where he inno­vates is in an uncom­pro­mis­ing refusal to equate ado­les­cence with improve­ment. In any oth­er teen film, Dawn would learn valu­able lessons, have a makeover, and even­tu­al­ly emerge from her ugly duck­ling sta­tus to become pop­u­lar or even prom queen. Yet in Wel­come to the Doll­house, Dawn is applaud­ed and loved only in her dreams – and final­ly is informed by Mark, who is dis­missed as ​“king of the nerds” by anoth­er char­ac­ter and has clear­ly had it every bit as hard as Dawn, that things bare­ly get bet­ter in Senior School, or in life.

Wel­come to the Doll­house is a com­e­dy of cringe, cap­tur­ing all the dis­com­fort and gawk­i­ness of com­ing of age. With­out it, there would be no oth­er ​‘spe­cial peo­ple’ films like Jared Hess’ Napoleon Dyna­mite or Adam Rehmeier’s Din­ners in Amer­i­ca – fea­tures which rev­el in the country’s mar­gin­alised mis­fts and bewil­dered weirdos. Solondz’s film is fun­ny, to be sure, but alway uncom­fort­ably so, as each and every character’s self­ish, sadis­tic side is exposed and enact­ed. Nobody comes out of this look­ing pret­ty, and dig­ni­ty – a key word in the film – is always far removed from these char­ac­ters’ Dar­win­ian strug­gles to sur­vive their day with­out being reject­ed, mis­treat­ed or much, much worse.

Yet the real irony is that, when this mid-Nineties film is viewed today, it becomes clear that had Dawn – or Mark – been born but a decade lat­er, their nerdi­ness and need­i­ness would mark them as gen­uine gen­er­a­tional heroes rather than mere embar­rass­ment-induc­ing pro­tag­o­nists. Per­haps there is, after all, a bet­ter future in store for ​‘Wiener Dog’. For her ungain­ly, myopic rites of pas­sage mark her as the Dawn of a new online age where odd­balls, nerds and losers at last inher­it the imper­fect Earth.

Wel­come to the Doll­house is released on Blu-ray by Radi­ance Films, 6^th March, 2023.