Rating: Summary: One of the best!!! Review: I've seen this movie 20 times, and I still love it. It's so comforting to see a movie that is so dramatically horrible. I love the movie, and I think Todd Solondz is a genius. I can't wait to see Happiness.
Rating: Summary: HORRIBLE! Review: I think this may be the worst movie I have ever seen. The characters were not developed the plot did not go anywhere, the stroyline was depressing beyond hope and nothing had changed between the beginning and the end of the movie. I suggest that this movie be thrown off a cliff for good.
Rating: Summary: this movie is DOPE Review: yo alls i gotta say is that this is probably one of the funniest movies i ever saw even though it wasnt even meant to be funny. i remember when i was in 7th grade and i remember the kind of kids like dawn weiner. you will too when you watch this and you'll see how absolutly pitiful it must have been to be like one of those...
Rating: Summary: THIS MOVIE IS ONE OF THE BEST EVER Review: THIS MOVIE REALLY TAKES A REALISTIC LOOK AT GROWING UP IN THE SUBURBS OF NEW YORK IN THE 70'S
Rating: Summary: Want Funny? Review: This is funny. This is so funny that it isn't funny. Welcome To The Dollhouse is funny. The trouble is that I don't really think it was meant to be that funny. If you've lived life without seeing it, you should see it because you may just get harrassed by the school bully or worse. Don't worry, watch this movie, you'll know what to do.
Rating: Summary: It showed the life of a dorky, anxious jr. high girl. Review: I loved this movie!! I could watch it a million times, each time noticing something new! Although parts of it may be unrealistic, the majority of the movie captured the reality of how much jr. high rots!
Rating: Summary: I love this movie! Review: I'm going to keep this as short as possible and just say that this is such a wonderful movie. I've recommended it to friends before and they loved it except now they think I'm a little strange. This movie is sort of a "dark" comedy, but Heather Matarazzo and Brendan Sexton are wonderful together!! BUY THIS MOVIE!
Rating: Summary: One of the most surprising and engaging films I've seen Review: This movie is an absolute masterpiece, and although I don't think everyone would feel comfortable watching this painful movie, I think everyone should. For those who were popular and well-liked in Jr. High, this movie will show how it was like on the other side. I think if every parent and every child were to see this movie, it might somehow change the world. Children might be able to be a little less cruel, and it will also help parents to remember how utterly painful it was to grow up. I think adults should be well informed of the way kids are treated today, that it's not all sugar and spice and love thy brother. This movie captures it perfectly. END
Rating: Summary: Everybody Runs Away.... Review: Todd Solondz' WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE was one of those films that was "on my list" for many years. I had seen his second film HAPPINESS and was intrigued by Solondz dark dark humor. Why it took me so long to take in another of his films is hard to explain. Every review I had read of DOLLHOUSE praised it (and even some reviewers who literally hated HAPPINESS were oddly touched by this debut film). Perhaps it took me a year or so to summon up enough strength to take another Solondz flick. Now that I think about it, such hesitancy only seems natural. As it turns out, however, biting as it is, DOLLHOUSE is still a heck of a lot easier to watch than its follow-up.Perhaps it's because as some reviewers here suggest, we all have our own "inner Dawn Wiener." It's easy to identify with this ungainly, hopelessly unpopular teenager--with the awful barrettes and clothes, a brainy older brother, and pertly adorable younger sister. We can all cop to that one pretty much. (If you identify at all with the characters in HAPPINESS, you probably wouldn't want to admit it.) But I honestly don't think that Solondz' intent was to get viewers in touch with their "inner adolescent." He's going after something bigger than that--and more sinister too. I guess it shouldn't be so surprising that many reviewers here identify with Dawn, but when they start calling the film "realistic," you have to wonder. If there was ever a film that was an exercise in pop SURrealism, this is it. As a teen alienation flick, I'd rate it right up there with GHOST WORLD, and like that film, it has a distorted, fun-house-mirror quality--that is, I'll grant you, simultaneously more and less real that mere realism. (I guess that's the essence of SURREALISM). Dawn's parents, for example, are little more than cartoon figures--at least until her father has a near nervous breakdown. And doesn't that reflect a teenage sense of reality even better than sheer realism, after all? Your average teen doesn't see his or her parents as full-fledged human beings. They're way too busy with their own boiling over emotions. Until their parents humanity hits them in the face, kids see them through the looking glass, darkly--if at all. Which is not to say that either of Dawn's parents becomes remotely sympathetic. Interesting too how in the end, Dawn's two almost-boyfriends have run away to the city. Dawn kinda sorta runs away herself trying to track downr her kidnapped little sister. Seems like anyone with a lick of sense gets out of that town.
Rating: Summary: A Painful Pleasure Review: When I first saw "Welcome to the Dollhouse" in the theater, I had mixed feelings about it. Although I found myself totally immersed in this offbeat story of a pathetic and persecuted girl, I initially questioned whether the movie really had a heart. What truly impressed me was Todd Solondz's frighteningly realistic depiction of junior high. As far as I'm concerned, it would be impossible for a filmmaker to exaggerate the torture of those hellish years, and Solondz really captured the experience to its full extent. What I considered somewhat unrealistic and offputting at the time was the way Dawn's family came across as so uncaring and even malicious. The film is obviously a black comedy, intended for uncomfortable laughs, but it seemed that these characters were so impossibly mean that they risked becoming ugly caricatures that you couldn't take seriously. I came away feeling that I had just witnessed something very intense and moving, yet I also felt the movie was overly preoccupied with its intent to shock and disturb. Since that initial viewing, I have purchased the video and watched it at least five times. With each viewing, I have found more and more truth and resonance in the bleak and hopeless world that Solondz constructed...and have become more and more convinced of its status as a minor masterpiece. Even though there is a lot of over-the-top venom and hostility thrown around in this film, there are also heartbreaking moments of raw and deeply-felt emotion that anyone who has ever wanted to be loved and accepted can surely relate to (in other words, the majority of humankind). One of the most poignant segments is when Dawn dreams that everyone in her life is declaring their love for her, only to wake up to her reality: she is alone and lying on a dirty city street. Then there's always the film's final and most emotionally devastating image of Dawn riding on a bus to Disneyland with her Glee Club. Those last few seconds always give me goosebumps. And don't forget the all-time best movie lines that have become staples among my circle of friends: "Tell your sister you love her!" and "At 3:00, you will be raped." I am now convinced that anyone who is unable to find some value in this movie is either 1) one of the lucky few who was generic enough to make it through those junior high years free of torment or 2) one of the mean and malicious people depicted in the movie who turned the rest of us into a bunch of Dawn Weiners.
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