Rating: 
Summary: a MUST SEE MOVIE!!
Review: I loved this movie, i heard my friends talking about it at school one day so when i went to the video store i rented it and its my favorite movie!! i feel bad for dawn weiner, but its hard not to laugh at what goes on....U have to see this movie!!
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Summary: Welcome To Depression
Review: This movie is beyond depressing. Let's get that statement out of the way. If you're in a lousy mood, don't watch this movie. Only watch it if you can be faced with a very realistic and sometimes disturbing movie. The two young actors in this movie - Heather Matarazzo and Brendan Sexton, Jr. are well beyond their years. They portray two completely different Jr. High students - Dawn Wiener and Brandon McCarthy, respectively. This film takes you on tour of the typical day of Dawn. She's the outcast of her school, her family, and in life. Things continue to not go her way throughout this movie. The director, Todd Solondz, somehow has turned something as uneventful as a family sitting down to dinner and made it into something completely tormenting for Dawn and the viewer. If you're looking for a teen movie in which the underdog of her school ends up being prom queen, don't watch this movie.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Movies of the 1990s.
Review: Let me get this out of the way: in grade school, I was teased. A lot. In fact, it was so bad that even walking to school was an emotionally and physically painful experience. I can relate to every second of misery Dawn endures in the dynamite "Welcome to the Dollhouse." Most films like "Sixteen Candles" view high school as some insulated paradise. Not this film. Here, Dawn (played by Heather Matarazzo) is as socially inept as a pre-teen girl can be. She is subject to taunts, verbal assault, and vicious mind games at the hands of her classmates. Home life isn't much better; her parents blissfully ignore her while they shower attention on her cutsey younger sister, Missy. They give her attention only when they catch her doing something wrong, which seems to be most of the time. On top of this, she develops a crush for the teenage lead singer of her brother's band. Anyone who has experienced unrequieted love will find this subplot heartbreaking to watch. Despite the above, "Welcome to the Dollhouse" is a murderously funny movie to watch, even if you were a victim of grade school teasing. The performances are dead-on and it's one of my favorite movies of the 1990's.
Rating:
Summary: This should come with a warning
Review: Most high-school movies make school look like a paradise where the ugly girl is actually really beautiful, the sun shines every day, and all the dorks manage to fight back in the end. Unless, of course, they're the kind of dorks that you *should* laugh at. Then they probably fall over or something. Maybe if you watch enough of these kind of movies, you will start to believe that your own school days were similarly perfect. If you want to continue to believe this, don't watch "Welcome To The Dollhouse".Dawn Wiener is the kind of girl who everyone feels sorry for when you watch her on screen, but if you were there would you really be willing to risk everything and sit next to her at lunch? Without the looks or personality to be popular, she is picked on mercilessly by students and teachers alike. Things aren't any better at home either - her parents obviously play favourites, her perfect adorable wannabe-ballerina sister Missy is loved by everyone and her older brother Mark thinks only of getting into a good college (telling Dawn that she might as well go to Disney World because it would look good on her college resume). Her only real friend and sole member of Dawn's 'Special People Club' is a boy named Ralphie, smaller than she is and nicknamed "faggot". The movie deals with Dawn's huge crush, on the high school heart throb who is currently lead singer in her brother's band, realistically. He's fairly indifferent to her. If he notices her, he's kind to her in a distant sort of way. Most of the time he hardly sees her. Meanwhile Brandon, the boy who really does like her, bullies her to show that he doesn't. If you don't want to get all your repressed memories stirred up again, it's probably not a good idea to see this film. If you do see it, beware. You get bitter and start writing reviews like this one.
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Summary: this movie is sweet
Review: This is the tipe of movie u want to see with a friend its so messed up its funny!
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Summary: This is real life
Review: Think 'Carrie'. Think her at school but without her telekinetic powers: this is Dawn, the protagonist of anti-fairy tale movie, 'Wellcome To The Dollhouse", directed by Todd Solondz . For Dawn, High School is hell. She has no friends, she is neither cute, nor popular. Everybody makes fun of her. One boy threatens to rape her, he says "Be here at 3", and she is there, but he is not interested in her any more. At home, things are not very different. Her parents don't care about her. They got eyes only for her little sister, who is too polite, too smart, too cute -- too hatefull -- and for her older brother, a kind of genius who is only worried about his curriculum and his stupid nerd band. Even when she falls in love, we have to addmit, she is ignored either. That is Dawn's world. And she doesn't care about it. Nor Solondz. He doesn't want to give us a lecture, saying to love everybody, even the strange girl. Moreover, his work says "This is life, whether you like it or not!" And this a concept that he explored much more in his lattest movies 'Happiness' (1998) and 'Storytelling'(2002). He has a special interest in the bizarre without making it grotesque. His films are not made to laugh out loud, they make you give pale smilles. It seems to me that the only one who have any good feeling for Dawn is the audience. It is impossible not to feel tempted to 'get inside' the movie, shake her and say "Wake up, girl! They don't like you. Forget about them." But nobody does it. She has to move on living, despite all the limitations of her life. Who says that had never met someone like Dawn at school --or anywhere else-- is lying! She is the kind of person who is around everywhere. And almost everybody ignores them. Everybody but Todd Solondz --who himself looks very alike this kind of person-- and made a wonderful movie about his strange and peculiar universe.
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Summary: A movie that shows what middle school is REALLY like!
Review: If you were mr or miss Popular or Jock in school I would suggest you stop reading right now!! This movie realisticly shows the reality of Middle school. A three year period that is even worse than most prisons. A period that most people (Like myself) would prefer to block out! This movie is about Dawn Weiner the absoulute low end of the social chain at Ben Franklin Jr. High located somewhere in suburban New Jersey.Anybody who went to middle school (Public or even Private) would know. The strangely ugly dog with thick glasses,bland hair, bad taste in clothing, a bit on the big side that even people that were allready pretty low in popularity themselves would bully around or yell out "DOG" or "Lezbo" whenever she walked by. This movie realistic captures the horrors of suburban middle school hell or any middle school for that matter. Plus the girl is actually homely (No offence to Heather :) unlike the Hollywood teen movies in which the ugly girl is really a babe with glasses and a pony tail. Final verdict.. This movie is wonderful and makes you thankfull that the misery know as middle school ended and that you grew up unharmed(Well "mostly" unharmed!:)
Rating: 
Summary: A great film
Review: Like the other Todd Solondz film I watched, 'Happiness', 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' is a film that does not leave you with a sense of happiness after watching it. It is not 'uplifting'. However, it is a film that I and hopefully others will be glad they watched. Like Happiness, this film contained one scene that I found particularly emotive, and serves in one way to illustrate certain 'harsh realities' that are just that; reality. In Welcome to the Dollhouse, this reality is the fact that people often take out their own anger or frustration on others - like the main character, Dawn, does to her best friend. Everyone should watch this film. I hope Solondz's later work will be just as good.
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Summary: The "It" Girl
Review: After a showing of this film, a friend of mine commented "It's her parents' fault." Now whether the culpability for "it" can be laid squarely at the feet of Dawn Wiener's parents is a debate, and not a question; the question of that statement is what exactly is the antecedent for "it"? When I asked another friend whether she had seen this film, she said she thought she had heard of it, and was it a horror film? and I had to think about the question. Anyone who has lived through this excruciating film about Dawn Wiener's junior high school years immediately understands what "it" is, yet to try and replace it with a single proper noun has me stymied. Something is wrong with Dawn. She's "geeky," sure. But most geeky kids usually at least have the solace of other geeky kids; Dawn doesn't have a friend in the universe. Her counselor notices she is unhappy, so advises her to make some friends, as though it were just that easy. But nothing is wrong with Dawn. She's not learning disabled; she's not mentally ill; she doesn't have Asperger's Syndrome. She may be clinically depressed by the time we see her, but we could argue "chicken or egg" for hours. Dawn endures spitballs in her hair during school assemblies, watching her sister and brother eating chocolate cake while she is given none, standing up to give a speech before her class, and being shouted down with cries of "Wiener dog!" She finally tries her own hand at scraping together a few crumbs of self-esteem, forming a "special people" club, only to be informed that "special people" is a euphemism for "retarded." Even when her spoiled little sister disappears for a day, Dawn doesn't think that perhaps at least she'll get some parental attention; she thinks that if she finds her sister, maybe she'll have a momentary "Thank you!" The odd thing is, EVERYONE seems to remember junior high school this way. Everyone remembers being spat at, but not spitting, being called names, but not name-calling. Whatever "it" is, everyone remembers it. Maybe that's why the crowd at Sundance cheered. Or maybe it was just Heather Matarazzo's brilliant performance. How hard must it have been for a kid actually in this vulnerable stage to expose it on film? I'm not surprised that this film was rated "R," and never made it out of the Art House circuit. Children know terrible things, but adults never want to admit that they know. This film is more about adult catharsis than children's reality, although I sincerely believe that had I seen it at the age of eleven or twelve, it would have reduced me to tears.
Rating:
Summary: I even liked the song
Review: This is a very funny comedy about the indomitable spirit of an 11-year-old junior high school girl, Dawn Wiener, played with geekish verve by Heather Matarazzo, who overcomes real life horrors the likes of which would make war heroes shutter. How would you like to be courted by a guy whose pick up line is "I'm going to rape you at three o'clock. Be there."? Or have a mother who splits your chocolate cake in front of your watering eyes into two pieces and adds them to the plates of your brother and sister? Or have your dream lover tell you he can't be a member of your Special People Club because it's "a club for retards"? It gets worse. You're taunted daily by choruses of "Wiener Dog!" and "Lesbo freak!" and bullied at school by everybody including some teachers and the principal. And at home, your siblings tear down your club house. And when you're missing from home for a day and phone home, you're told to call back later, mom and your spoiled little sister are mugging for the TV cameras. Ah, but Dawn can overcome the night. She turns the would-be rapist into a macho-posturing little boy who really only wants to be affectionate ("I make the first move!" he boasts) and demonstrates that no matter how hard they hit her, she'll be back tomorrow, undaunted. Matarazzo does a great job, but she isn't alone. Brenden Sexton stands out as the posturing macho boy who loves her but can't admit it, as does Eric Mabius playing Steve Rogers, the self-absorbed high schooler/rock star wanna be (and Dawn's first love). The rest of the cast is also good, especially Victoria Davis in a bit part as the foul-mouthed, sexually ambiguous 12-year-old Lolita who corners Dawn in the bathroom. Incidentally that scene in which Lolita slyly tells Dawn "You didn't come in here to wash your hands," and insists that she do what she intended to do is just a great piece of pre adolescent camp. Another fine (and subtle) scene is when Dawn in her bedroom hears Steve Rogers sing for the first time (in the garage with her brother's "band"). The expression on her face, as she rises up enthralled and follows the sound, suggests someone in the throes of a first awakening. And I loved the bit where Dawn, after being told by one of Steve Rogers's ex-girl friends that they "finger-...(you-know-what)" one night and that was all, is inspired to demonstrate her finger work on the piano to Steve and then to show him her hands, fingers spread so he can see them. Of course he hasn't a clue to what she's thinking--and we're not too sure either! Now some people may think there is some exaggeration here, and they're right. I mean, nobody wears a pirate's black eye patch after getting hit in the eye with a spit ball! And teachers, even bad ones, know better than to deliberately humiliate their students (although some do it unconsciously). Nonetheless, while the action may not be entirely realistic at times, its spirit is totally true. Just ask anybody who remembers junior high school. Which brings me to the question: how did director and script writer, Todd Solondz, get it so right? Did he take notes when he was still in junior high to use when he grew up? Did he steal his daughter's diary? Clearly somebody lived this script. I'm guessing that "Dawn" is "Todd" at least in spirit, and the striking capture of the psychology of the world of being twelve-years-old is due to his having been there and done that, "big time," as is written on Dawn's locker. Whatever, this full color world of the middle child is an adorable, witty, psychologically honest, beautifully directed and edited, masterfully conceived entertainment, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, 1996, and sure to steal your heart. Final irony: this is a movie for and about 12-year-olds (it would appear) yet it is rated "R" and so, in effect, junior high school life is not only "not suitable" for those under thirteen, they can't even view it!
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