Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

Don't watch Happiness.

The only time Solonz got the balance right.

Dollhouse.

I think that there's hope in the end, though the ending feels compromised (the kidnapping doesn't work that great). That compromise may be for the best, all things, because Dawn on the bus is depressing, it does suggest that eventually it will all end. Or at least it did to me, because I think most people identify with Dawn Weiner, who is trying to figure it out and is awkward, but not without possible redemption. That was my reading on it, though Solonz would probably not encourage that thought process, expecially since he killed her in a later film. I don't believe that though.

Agreed that Dollhouse is more balanced than anything he's done since (never saw anything he did before). Happiness felt not only as if disliked its characters, but seemed to be laughing at them in odd spots.

The thing about Happiness is, yea, it does seem like Solondz finds his characters repulsive, but I couldn't help but hope that Dylan Baker's character wouldn't get caught. Which is very repulsive. I talked this over with my friends, and they felt the same way. This kind of hope probably stems with his family being collatrall damage if he's exposed.

The point I'm making is that it takes balls to take this story in that direction, and I commend Solondz for that. Just a shame that the rest of the film didn't have that urgency.

In my opinion, Little Children articulated it's similar plot better.

I'd call that Baker's achievement more than Solondz'. If anyone's got "balls" for doing this film, it's Dylan Baker.

A friend of mine saw that, none too pleased. I can tell you that for sure.

Happiness is great. As is Storytelling. Palindromes, not so much.

Palindromes was really really weird. I'll echo Patrick's thoughts on Welcome to the Dollhouse, it brought back a lot of bad memories and made me very uncomfortable.

If you ever had your dog lick up your ejaculate, or cried because your pedophile dad didn't want to touch you, Happiness has more bad memories to bring back.

Luckily I've seen that one and it did not remind me of my childhood.

Solondz is pretty ruthless. One of my fondest memories of Dollhouse is the scene where Dawn wakes up from her dream and is lying in the gutter in NYC. I think that sums up the movie perfectly.

I need to re-watch Storytelling all the way through, but I liked Palindromes (not his best though). Happiness I think was his perfect film, it reminded me of a looser, more horrifying version of Shortcuts. Dylan Baker played the part perfectly. Though I've never had the urge to molest a young boy, I've been in similar situations involving porn and masturbation, so I think Baker got that weird, urgent type of relentless behavior down pat. Plus, he's naturally creepy. I think it's tough to beat Philip Seymour Hoffman masturbating on the phone though.


Also, that one woman who played the semi-main character, she's really typecasted huh? I remember her in Little Children, essentially transferring the role over and having to bear the wrath of Jackie Earle Haley's masturbation fury instead of Hoffman's.

I think I know how Patrick feels. I've walked out after movies and been angry at the filmmakers plenty, but I think Dollhouse is the only time I ever walked out angry at the movie itself.

I still don't know if I liked it.

Jane Adams.

I caught this one this week. As twisted and nasty as aspects of it were it wasn't nearly as bleak or misanthropic as I was expecting. There's some warmth to it and for the first time I felt like Solondz actually kind of liked his characters. It's got a lot of energy and nice dark humour, and it's refreshing to see a story about awkward school kids populated with actual awkward teenagers, rather than your usual hollywood sanctioned pseudo-teens.

I did think it lost its way a bit in the final stretch, after it moves away from the love triangle storylines into the kidnap plot. Plus it probably would've made more of an impact if quirky, 'indie' approaches to school stories hadn't been done so many times since this came out. And compared to the sheer balls Solondz displayed with Happiness, the more shocking aspects of this one seemed tamer than they probably would've done if I hadn't seen his later films and known the kind of things to expect.

Good film though. It really nails the emotions of the time, the misguided ways teenage minds can work, and how misery can get passed along from person to person. Even though I went to very different school in a different country this still managed to take me right back to those days, whether I wanted to go or not.

Yeah, I thought Welcome to the Dollhouse wasn't nearly as dark as Storytelling, which I watched about a week and a half ago. As I described to my friend, who had me watch Welcome to the Dollhouse, the third act of Adaptation kind of jumps the tracks and veers off into a crazy, ballsy direction, and Storytelling is like 87 consecutive minutes of that feeling.

There may have been moments in this that Ii thought even bordered on sweet, in their own demented, backwards-ass way. Hmm.

Todd Solondz deserves credit for the ability to shock people. In today's day and age, that seems to mean something; his movies can strike a nerve that everyone can relate to, these disturbing facets of human nature we're familiar with, but never talk about because shit's disturbing. If he wasn't a great director, most of his movies would be outright dismissed and forgotten about. People do try to dismiss them, but they can't shut the fuck up about them.