Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Welcome to the Dollhouse Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 26, 2018

A middle school setting and an "R" rated movie wouldn't necessarily seem to go hand-in-hand. After all, that kind of rating usually goes with the kind of black comedy stories one would find within the hallowed halls of high school where the students are a little older, more experienced, more attuned to the world around them, more hormonal. Middle school seems like a safer cinematic environment, the kind of place where movies like Diary of a Wimpy Kid take place, which in some ways really isn't all that different from Welcome to the Dollhouse. The difference is that the latter, Writer/Director Todd Solondz's (Happiness) film about a bullied, loner middle school girl, takes the hard-edged, reality driven angle rather than one that is perhaps a little more watered-down for wider audiences and watchers (or readers) who are the same age as the characters depicted in the film. No, Welcome to the Dollhouse offers an uncompromising look at bullying and survival both in school and in the family structure, a story in which a young girl is not only verbally abused at school but threatened with rape, mistreated at home, and must deal with a family member who may have been kidnapped to be sold into sex slavery.

Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is a middle school girl who is finally starting to notice boys. And they notice her, too, not because she's beautiful but because she has become the target of a bullying campaign that essentially involves the entire school. She's thought to be a homosexual, which fuels much of the bullying. She's called "Wiener Dog." she's often shot with spitballs and students make obscene gestures towards her in class. Tattling and retaliating only end up landing her in more trouble. One particularly bothersome student is Brandon McCarthy (Brendan Sexton III) who threatens her with rape but is secretly attracted to her. Dawn, meanwhile, finds herself attracted to an older high school boy named Steve (Eric Mabius) who is a member of her brother's garage band. As Dawn attempts to navigate school and her emotions, her home life begins to crumble, too, when her parents and siblings seem to disfavor her and threaten to tear down her only solace and safe space, a crude clubhouse in her backyard, so they can more effectively use the space for an elaborate wedding anniversary celebration.

Welcome to the Dollhouse isn’t particularly concerned with building a traditional narrative. It’s more of an extended snapshot of a life in crisis. It’s more illustrative and interpretive than it is more streamlined in terms of constructing and seeing viewers through a traditional storyline. The movie deals in Dawn’s experiences, real and perceived expectations for herself and the world around her, and, almost exclusively, the pains she experiences, pains of fear, pains of rejection, and how she copes with an ever crumbling and enclosing world around her. It’s a dark film and mildly humorous as an offset. It's a picture that takes maybe an extreme yet very believable look into a life forced into exclusion at the only two places a young girl really knows: home and school.

Performances are where the movie shines. Solondz's script requires a range of unspoken inward emotions and nuanced exchanges that the cast hammers down with uncanny depth and understanding. Then-young Heather Matarazzo, in her first credited role no less, inhabits her character with a strikingly balanced, understanding approach. The pains are obvious as the film begins and the character's evolution, from bullied and threatened student to sexually curious young girl, from victim to the person who facilitates a family crisis, comes subtly but profoundly. And with the film's structure not held up by a major plot line, it's left to Matarazzo to not only carry the movie, but to shape it. The film is a reflection of her character Dawn's life, dominated not by grand themes and ideas and events but defined by moments and nuance and human nature instead. Dawn's character is the movie; the camera simply follows her physically and Matarazzo reveals the character intimately.

Welcome to the Dollhouse Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Welcome to the Dollhouse arrives on Blu-ray as part of Sony's MOD (Manufactured on Demand) line, and as expected with the studio's history of putting out top-quality product, this is a very nice presentation. The 1080p picture quality is natural and cinematically organic. Grain is light but retained for the duration, a complimentary texture that solidifies the picture's top-end detailing. Skin textures lack the firm, intimate complexity of the best transfers, and the image might be said to be a hint soft in total, but pimples, freckles, and essential skin details are very revealing within the image's greater context, as are various environments, including school classrooms and objects in Dawn's bedroom. Colors are generally fine, lacking real extreme punch and vitality but various examples of brighter shades are nicely integrated, such as seen in a barrage of colorful attire during Dawn's parents' anniversary party in chapter six. There are a few examples of black levels rising a little or pushing to a purple shade (with some tightening in later scenes when the story shifts to nighttime New York exteriors) and it's not uncommon to spot some smaller examples of print wear (pops, scratches). Opening title wobble is obvious, too, but not necessarily distracting. While the presentation doesn't redefine the Blu-ray catalogue landscape, it's a very pleasing, accurate, and filmic 1080p image that should please longtime fans and newcomers alike.

Welcome to the Dollhouse Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Welcome to the Dollhouse features a single soundtrack option, a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack (note that the packaging incorrectly states that a 5.1 track is included). Music is adequately hard-edged when Rock Riffs drive out from the speakers, and width is satisfactory. The same can be said of some of the garage band music heard in spots throughout the film. Applause from an assembled student body offers nice clarity and stage stretch in the 18-minute mark, and some light reverb drifts out to the side at the same time when the speaker addresses the crowd. As was the case with another Sony MOD title, The Principal, it is in scenes such as this where the absence of a more expansive surround presentation hinders the scene's impact, though the two-channel configuration admirably stretches the material fairly well on its own. Other examples of environmental din or ambient support are very few; the film is a dialogue-heavy one and speech plays with good basic clarity and images nicely towards the middle.

Welcome to the Dollhouse Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only supplement included with this Blu-ray release of Welcome to the Dollhouse is a theatrical trailer (1080p upscaled, 4x3, 1:54). No DVD or digital versions are included and the release does not ship with a slipcover.

Welcome to the Dollhouse Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Welcome to the Dollhouse is a curious, but highly effective, R-rated approach to middle school life. It's refreshingly honest, dark and depressing at times but a welcome exploration of maybe a more realistic vision of that time in a young person's life than some other play-it-safe Dramedies. The film tackles many topics but isn't necessarily driven by a single narrative. It's a movie of experiences, shaped by a young girl's existence in and through bullying at school, isolation at home, and her responses to both as well as her growth as a human being. Sony's Blu-ray delivers very good 1080p video and a perfectly adequate two-channel lossless soundtrack. The supplements are unfortunately limited to a trailer. Recommended.