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Welcome to the Dollhouse

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Welcome to the Dollhouse reviews
83
10.0 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama

Written by: Todd Solondz

Directed by: Todd Solondz

Release Date:
Theatrical: March 22, 1996
DVD: August 3, 1999

Running Time: 88 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for language

Starring Heather Matarazzo, Victoria Davis, Christina Brucato, Christina Vidal, Siri Howard, Brendan Sexton III, Telly Pontidis, and Herbie Duarte

Welcome to the Dollhouse is a stark suburban comedy about 11-year-old Dawn Wiener (Matarazzo), a middle child in middle school in the middle of New Jersey. (Sony Pictures Classics)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

But I'm making Welcome to the Dollhouse sound like some sort of grim sociological study, and in fact it's a funny, intensely entertaining film.

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100

San Francisco Examiner Barry Walters

Todd Solondz's grand prize winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival lapses into satire, but its parodistic slant only exaggerates what is truthful, making the unpleasantness of that awkward age all the more disturbing and hilarious. It's a horror film starring reality in the monster role.

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91

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

But Solondz also creates keen portraits of the participating characters in Dawn's daily drama. (The only downside: The drama veers unsteadily toward outlandishness.)

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90

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

With his ability to understand and convey these absurdist scenarios in both adult and preteen terms, writer-director Solondz catches the unlooked-for humor in poignant, hurtful situations.

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90

Newsweek David Ansen

The beauty of Welcome to the Dollhouse is its pokerfaced objectivity, which neither condescends to its pubescent victim nor romantically inflates her plight.

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90

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

With a fine vengeance along with flashes of great, unexpected tenderness, Mr. Solondz lethally evokes every petty humiliation that his seventh-grade heroine can't wait to forget.

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90

Variety Emanuel Levy

Though lacking the sensationalistic elements of a movie like "Kids", Dollhouse offers unflinching realism, meticulous attention to detail and deliciously wicked humor as it explores the growing pains of a misfit.

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89

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

As Dawn, Matarazzo isn't afraid to evoke the horrors of puberty with a straightforward charmlessness: She's gawky, unhappy, and confused, while her tingling of sexual desire downright gives you the shivers.

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88

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

Hilarious and stunningly frank, writer-director Todd Solondz's evocation of awkward adolescence is a bracing antidote to the counterfeit nostalgia of "The Wonder Years" or "My So-Called Life".

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88

USA Today Mike Clark

Welcome to the Dollhouse does, with accessible dark comedy and chilling honesty, reminding us right off that school-cafeteria agonies only begin with the cuisine. [24 May 1996 Pg.04.D]

80

Time Richard Schickel

Solondz observes all this activity from an objectifying distance, very much the anthropologist trekking through the heart of darkness

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80

Empire Caroline Westbrook

It may not be to everybody's taste, but this is a daring antidote to its more saccharine cousins.

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80

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Writer-director Todd Solondz is far from clueless when it comes to the agonies of early adolescence, which he mercilessly re-creates in his caustic suburban comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse.

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80

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It scores its comic points with dire one-liners, an astringent dearth of sentimentality and only-in-America developments.

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75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Todd Solondz's movie begins like a suburban ugly-duckling tale with many comic overtones, but it grows darker as it goes along, evoking dangers that youngsters must be alert to in today's world - from drugs to child abuse - and showing how cruel children can be to one another when grownups aren't around.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Solondz ("Fear, Anxiety and Depression") is almost unrelenting in his quirky fixation with the adolescent outsider and he pursues visions of everyday human injury nearly to the point of caricature. But he stops just short, and this amusingly twisted film mixes humor and heart-tugging sadness with a disturbing vitality.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

In this impressive debut, Solonz doesn't pull any punches in conveying the side of junior high that "The Wonder Years" never depicted: the naked cruelty that some boys and girls suffer at the hands of their classmates, their teachers, and even members of their own family.

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70

Salon.com Laura Miller

Solondz's staunch commitment to depicting Dawn's humiliation sans sentimentality is honorable, and his eye for everyday human nastiness apt, but his intentions are rather cautious.

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60

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This obsessive movie, awarded the grand jury prize at the Sundance festival, may not quite live up to its advance billing; the subject is powerful, but the filmmaking often seems slapdash, and the final half hour dithers.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Josh C gave it a10:
A Massterpiece ! One of the best films of 1996. Funny, touching, and all around wonderful. It figures that a smug, self-important blowhard like Rosenbaum would give this a negative review.

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