Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996)

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He made his first feature for a studio, lost control of it, and hated the result so much he spent years telling people not to watch it. "I'm asking you, as my friend, don't rent it, don't try to see it."

Todd Solondz left the business - or as he has put it, it left him - and took a job teaching English to Russian immigrants in New York.

Six years later, a lawyer friend offered to help fund whatever he wanted to make. He made WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995), the most merciless film ever made about being twelve.

Dawn Wiener is a seventh grader in New Jersey. Her classmates torment her, her mother prefers her little sister, her father barely registers her.

What makes it great is that the film will not let her be lovable. Dawn is awkward, sullen, and sometimes cruel herself, and Solondz refuses to pretend otherwise. The character was later featured (with different actresses and alternating timelines) in his subsequent films Palindromes (2004) and Wiener-Dog (2016).

Welcome to the Dollhouse won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1996.

(TIL that Heather Matarazzo is married to Heather Turman, and that Gaten Matarazzo's mother is also named Heather. Which reminds me, I really need to do a post on Heathers.)

About the Film

Not all girls want to play with dolls.

Directed By
Todd Solondz
Runtime
88 minutes
Released
March 22, 1996
Certification
R
Country
United States of America
Starring
Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton III, Eric Mabius, Matthew Faber, Daria Kalinina
More Credits
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Language
English
Origin
US
Studios
Suburban Pictures
Written By
Todd Solondz
Produced By
Todd Solondz, Donna L. Bascom
Cinematography
Randy Drummond
Music
Jill Wisoff
Also Starring
Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Will Lyman, Rica Martens, Stacey Moseley
Budget
$800,000
Box Office
$5,034,794

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    7. Celeste Finn “Happiness” is a truly fantastic film, but hard to “love” exactly, given the subject matter. Greatly appreciate the fine and nuanced storytelling, yes, but it left me traumatized.

  13. Dawn was quite lovable. I felt awful for her – the fact she isn’t a perfect victim didn’t register. Also, I wonder if Solondz’s experience teaching English to immigrants informed the scenes in “Happiness” when Joy is teaching English.

      1. Right – he didn’t make her some angelic child being tortured by mean kids. She was a regular kid enduring abuse from other kids and a complete lack of sympathy from adults. And she took her frustrations out by bullying younger/smaller kids in similar ways, which is very realistic.

      2. Jeannine Anderson Glasses, braces, Walmart clothes, and overall gawkiness. Not to mention having my ass kicked by puberty so bad that daily showering and Secret couldn’t tame my B.O. (which I was unable to smell so I was really confused). Didn’t help that I played clarinet in the band, not to mention the fact that I was a blue collar kid going to private school that one year.

    5. The girl who gets that label usually gets that label because she is mean, too, which is shown in the movie. When I was that age I was a small geek and I felt bad for this girl whose last name was Hotte, pronounced Hut, as in Jabba the Hutt. She was fat, pimply and had balls of frizz on her head like Brillo Pads. She was known as “The Ugliest Girl In School.” In every school I went to there was always one. When I tried to be nice to her, she was so mean. I realized that she hated herself so much that she hated anyone who was nice to her. Years later, she had two kids and was happily married and apologized to everyone for being so mean and she seemed very sweet and sincere. Sometimes it’s not about what’s on the outside.

      1. I had a fat, mean bully too. She was unbelievably cruel. We became friends in 4th grade though after 2 years of her tormenting me.

        I had the same experience with getting no support from my parents. I will be on antidepressants for the rest of my life.

    6. Grade school was cruel to me from the 4th up to 8th grade, I was living so much in the dark that I contemplated s****** sometimes when my parents choose to ignore me, telling me to stop showing off and deal with it instead of trying to help me go to therapy to let my fears out of my system instead of burying it deep and eat me inside out, and then they wonder why I’m still shy and doubtful of people as a 39 year old. After my 8th grade graduation, I felt free from my torment and flourished during my high school years with good grades and being in the honor roll, good times!!!

    8. Sean Wright Neeley It was hell for anyone who was different. I was quiet, shy, bookish, & briefly a child model. The mean girls called me ugly & other epithets so often that I believed them. This movie really gets it.

    11. Indeed. It’s that way for many kids. And then you grow up and it gets a little better, but you also discover there is a whole swath of people who want to make sure life is like junior high for the rest of everyone’s life.

  34. Stumbled onto this one late at night on Showtime or something in the early-mid 00’s, and loved it. I was only a few years out of junior high, so it hit in a way that I probably can’t replicate rewatching it now. That’s one of those double edged swords with art that you find at the perfect time.

  48. I Assistant Directed this movie and it was a lot of fun to make. You could never do something like this now but it was during the indy revolution of the 90’s and art pieces like this were not only tolerated but highly valued.

  52. The best, filmed in my hometown of West Caldwell NJ
    My friends house was used for her house
    The 7-11 where they talked about the h job is still there
    Plus they filmed in my Middle School and HS

  64. Brendan Sexton iii is one of the best young actors we have ever been blessed with. All of his work was incredible…this, empire records, pecker and even more recent stuff like the killing. He is great.

  65. Sony Pictures Classics was into a strategy they called counterprogramming and very much on purpose opened the movie July 4th weekend opposite the only other new movie INDEPENDENCE DAY

  68. I was 11 when this came out and I remember begging my mom to let me watch it but she said it looked too weird. I finally managed to finagle a copy a year or so later and I have been in love with Dawn Wiener and Todd Solondz ever since

    1. Susan Grant Yeah! I like that scene because it’s honest and true.

      Dawn: Mark, is eight grade better than seventh?

      Mark: All of junior high school sucks. High school’s better. It’s closer to college. They’ll call you names, but not as much to your face.

      That was pretty much my junior high/high school experience.

  93. I was living in Oslo at the time this one came out, working too much and drinking too much…but on rare night off, I went to see Welcome to the Dollhouse AND Kids…you now, too maximise my night off…I was blown away by both movies, and totally bombed mentally for days…I learned my lesson, only 1 good movie per day…

  112. I was driving to my aunties house on LI in 1999 & heather & a group of girlfriends pulled up next to me at the light . Having seen & owning WTTD ( I never returned it to Blockbuster ) I knew exactly who she was & said I LOVE YOU DAWN WEINER! She said who are you back to me & I drove away .

  116. Most movies about growing up as a child are seen as idyllic or an idealized youth through the prism of an adult. This film is an uncomfortable watch because this is closer to what growing is actually like.

  120. My brother and I sat elsewhere from my mother and her friends when we saw this. We laughed OUR ASSES OFF. Afterwards they were surprised we found it amusing… they were like this was sad! I was like welcome to junior high life in most of America.

  126. Palindromes disturbed me. I hadn’t seen the other movies, but I was a barista and a man whom resembled the truck driver started coming into my cafe. I would hide and make someone else help him when I saw him coming in. One day, I decided it was unfair to run from him every time he pulled up in the parking lot, so I stayed and took his order… he creeped me out even more.

  127. This put me in the head space of “Napoleon Dynamite” both films, slow paced but could watch them again and again. Honestly this character could of easily been ND’s lil sister.

  128. You didn’t come in here to wash your hands.. yes I did… Noooo you came in here.. to shit.. now shit…with the door open …why do you hate me… Because your ugly 😭😭😭😵‍💫

  140. When this came out, I was working at a small town video rental store. I was lucky enough to score a pre-release copy and a poster. My best friend and I were geeky misfits and we watched this movie over and over and over for years. “Are you going to rape me yet?” — really stood out to us.

  146. Todd’s not for everybody but I find his films genius, insightful, bittersweet and beautiful. Like Michael Kenneth Williams said…he tries to find the humanity in deplorable people (paraphrasing).

  147. Correction: Dawn Wiener’s character was referenced in Palindromes, but it was her cousin, Aviva that was featured with different actors throughout that film.

    Welcome to the Dollhouse has a special place in my heart. I had a weird and negative 7th grade experience and Dawn, with her long, brown hair, glasses and awkward social skills was very similar to my own, but hers being a bit more brutal and exaggerated.

    With Dawn’s home life, her parents were straight up assholes and enablers of their other two children’s crappy behavior. Obvious, Harv and Marj Wiener paid a price when they threw all of their love at Missy Wiener, their youngest daughter. By the time Palindrome’s existed, from what I gathered, her character became spoiled, cruel, and just an overall manipulative and aweful person, based on her actions against Mark in that sequel.

    I don’t want to spoil what happens in Palindromes (awful movie by the way), but…the story in the pseudo sequel, Wiener Dog (also a pretty bad film) featuring Dawn and Brandon is actually pretty good and I would consider a parallel universe to Palindromes. The rest of that film…eh….I didn’t like it.

    Either way, Dawn Wiener’s character is pretty realistic and relatable in many ways in Welcome to the Dollhouse.

  155. This movie & my timeline ❤️ perfect movie at the perfect age, I was 12. And, Brendan Sexton pulled my interests out of childhood and thrust them into adolescence. F*** I had the biggest junior high crush on that dude. I had this repeat fantasy in 1995 or 96 of a sleepover with him & Devon Sawa where we would rent “Die Hard With A Vengeance” from Blockbuster, watch Beavis & Butthead while eating Taco Bell, put in the movie, and then play Truth or Dare, but its all dares. In my later teens, I discovered that the entire time, Heather Matarazzo lived in the next town over, and my grandfather knew her family. In my early 20s I finally got to meet her, and she was so sweet and tolerant of my starry eyed fanboy introduction that I loved her even more💕

  164. Heather is Gaten’s Mom, from Stranger things??? No shite….WOW, that’s a great surprise. And it’s amazing to see them both lean into their quote, end quote, weirdness it’s what makes them so likable, and they’re both extremely talented.That’s pretty awesome. For the record, I have friends that we’re married to each other.Sadly, one passed away, but they were both.Named Melissa Mccarthy…RIP MISS MELISSA xoxoo

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