Welcome to the Dollhouse is a coming-of-age dark comedy film from 1995 that ideally, you would not find relatable. The plot follows gawky twelve-year-old Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo in her breakout role) slogging through ridicule in all her interactions. Director Todd Solondz creates what he calls “sad comedies,” which all take place in his homeland, suburban New Jersey. I myself grew up in the 90’s New Jersey suburbs, as a declasse’ dressed, brunette ponytail and glasses wearing, socially inept middle child akin to Dawn. Is middle school possibly everyone’s truest self we are all trying to retool?

The first scene has Dawn scanning the school lunch room for somewhere to sit while students grimace at her presence. Figuring out where you can sit in a grade school lunchroom is likely the birthplace of human insecurity. In pre-school a kid is handed a PB&J at the same table where they are decimating a Highlights magazine. You could be wearing a Baby Bop t-shirt, proudly so. Grade school involves entering a phase of life where you have to not just be accepted, but picked.

Dawn sits down across from Lolita, a brooding grunge-dressed girl who appears to be a pariah. A hoard of cheerleaders comes over to their lunch table and asks if Dawn “is a lesbian.” Lolita smirks and tells the cheerleaders that Dawn “made a pass at her,” and they all mercilessly cackle. Next Dawn spots a small nerdy boy being harassed by the lockers and called a “f*****” by some bullies. When she is successful at staving off the bullies, the trampled geek tells her to “leave him alone.” Dawn doesn’t even have allies in her own faux LGBTQ community.

Dawn then accidentally lands herself and bad boy classmate Brandon in detention because he tried to cheat off of her during a test. Dawn bemoans her innocence to Lolita. Lolita mutters “You’re always innocent, and Brandon’s always guilty.” It’s subtly a moving commentary on the archetypes young people get saddled with, and then ultimately try to pry themselves away from. It goes deeper than the central theme of the film, the cringe of one’s formative years, and touches on different hands that could be dealt at a young age.

In Dawn’s backyard her younger sister Missy is seen dancing around in a pink tutu, her uniform for the entire film. There’s a decrepit fort off to the side of the yard with a sign that reads “Special People Club”. Inside it is Dawn ironically lamenting about how unspecial she feels in comparison to Missy. She wishes death upon Missy, which doesn’t even feel dark in this film, as children don’t grasp death as suffering or complex at all. Children view death as a mode of not seeing a person anymore. Dawn and Missy both want each other dead throughout the film, because for them it generally means no more having to share a bedroom.

Mark tells the family at dinner he bagged Steve Rodgers, a hot aloof long-haired upperclassman, for his band. Steve will sing and play guitar in exchange for tutoring from Mark. The film makes several nods to a true looming threat in suburbia: a faulty college transcript. Mark mentions their band leveling up by way of Steve will "look good” on college transcripts, and humbly quips “maybe not the Big 3, but possibly Stanford.” The dry humor in the film is equally as enjoyable as the dark humor.

At the dinner table Dawn is busy mouthing “f*** y**” to Missy, and Missy suggests her mother send Dawn to a reformatory school. The next morning Dawn is sawing off the head of one of Missy’s Barbies in a fit of rage. Dawn is escalating a situation with the “favorite”, an ill-fated move carried out by all middle children to little avail. Middle children and/or least favorite children cannot win, the only possible win is patience. The patience is waiting until you’re out of the family home. But any re-entry, any holiday, any group setting for a middle child is just stepping through a portal where you are lesser than. I say this as a life-long middle child. If you’ll never feel good about yourself in that family environment, those people will never really know you. But will tell you they know you better than anyone.

In the school auditorium a student is on stage telling her fellow classmates about her recent stint of being kidnapped. The D.A.R.E program, and slideshows about kids dying from drunk driving on prom night, actually worked on me as a child. Fun was always ominous. I would have been very moved by this kidnapping story. I learned later in life I was an anomaly, as these programs often brought greater awareness and temptation to children in regards to partying.

During the seminar Dawn gets sent to the Principal’s office for goofing off with Brandon. The Principal gives her a veiled threat about how this kind of behavior could end up on her college transcript. The “college transcript” is practically Chekhov’s gun in this film, but I have reason to believe its power is anticlimactic. Isn’t it really just all about SAT scores and a last name that enables a potential quid pro quo?

The next day Mark’s band is practicing in the garage and Steve croons the titular song “Welcome to the Dollhouse” while Dawn wishes she was old enough to own a bra she could toss. Mark tells Dawn Steve is “bad at school because he’s horny” a throwaway line that is frankly the premise of many teen films. Dawn asks “how horny?” and Mark implies he’ll sleep with anyone who’s willing. Dawn is relieved at the lack of standard. I do remember that confusing hormonal feeling where you start to really notice and desire older teens, but your intellect isn’t there yet to understand 12-year-old you has no shot. It’s more than you are just plain looking, but you don’t exist to them as a prospect.

Dawn has an actual pursuer in Brandon who tells her the next day at school that he is going to r*** her at 3pm. Dawn doesn’t appear scared, but heads straight home. He calls her house demanding she actually show next time. Her Mom asks if who just called is a “nice boy”, to which Dawn replies “Ya, he’s okay.” Sequences like this in the film are true dark comedy, given the flagrant misuse of forbidden words at that age such as “r***”. I remember the word “sex” entering my vernacular at age seven, years before I knew what it meant.

What comes off as typical shock value in a dark comedy film, to me was further evidence that this film encapsulates a real pre-teen experience. It was never cute. Movies and TV for the most part depict what a parent would idealize. I was in middle school before things like Twitter existed, but we did have Livejournal, Xanga, and Blurty. I shudder to think about the language people my age wrote on those defunct online journals, because I remember the things we said across the school yard. This film casually says “r***” like we used to casually talk about who was doing self harm. It was normalized to talk openly about the cuts on someone’s arms and legs. There was no being “cancelled” everything someone thought in their head was said out loud.

I believe Solondz’s intention is to always do what was really happening, even if rarely shown in pop culture. He was making films before “clickbait” was a driving force at getting a person to consume content or art. You can tell he’s not pandering to anyone, including niche lovers of dark comedy, he makes films without a backup parachute.

The next day Brandon lures Dawn to an abandoned lot with a mattress. Brandon calls her a c***, tells her about his mentally challenged brother, and then sweetly kisses her. Nothing else happens, so it appears Brandon used the intimidation of a violent act to get alone time with Dawn. It’s a twisted notion, but once again unsurprising to me as something a misguided middle schooler would say. It becomes obvious Brandon’s home life is challenging and he doesn’t get a lot of attention. Dawn must resonate with him and his attraction to her begins to make sense.

The film builds up to Dawn’s parent’s 20th anniversary celebration, in the backyard where Dawn was forced to tear down the Special People’s Club. Dawn’s party outfit, a puffy crop top and “brat” lime green leggings, is delightfully 90s, but Dawn is to never know her impact. Dawn locates Steve and asks if he would like to join the soon-to-be-revived “Special People Club”. Steve, flatlining from second-hand embarrassment, tells Dawn that “special” has a very well known negative connotation. It’s such a core adolescent feeling, the dreamy older kid drops the floor out from under you, because you are a rube in their world.

The family watches a VHS tape of the party which looks like an America’s Funniest Home Videos contender given the insurmountable moments of Dawn being humiliated. Mark mentions Steve has dropped out of school to move to NYC to become the next Jim Morrison. The Dad scoffs that “he’ll never make it” , which dads love to say. Later that night Dawn goes outside and smashes the VHS tape. Dawn returns to her bedroom and raises the hammer over Missy’s tiny sleeping body. Dawn decides not to kill her sister.

The film’s climactic moment is when Missy gets kidnapped after ballet class caused by Dawn’s lack of writing her a note. It’s wild to think of the time before cell phones when children were out in the world getting dropped off places, to presumably return safely. It was either executed perfectly, or it was the worst day of a parent’s life.

Dawn later finds out Brandon is running away to NYC to avoid being sent to a reformatory school, because he was wrongfully suspected of dealing drugs. He notes ironically he now could be forced to deal drugs to make ends meet as a runaway. Brandon is the only known attempted r***** in the film, yet he may be the most sympathetic character, which is so Todd Solondz. Solondz will do everything in his films that he feels like doing.

At home Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake Theme” is loudly playing non-diegetically as Dawn’s Mom weeps at the dining room table across from Dawn and Mark, her auxiliary children. The song is a nice funny touch by Solondz given Missy was kidnapped from ballet class. There’s a great montage of Dawn dreaming she found Missy, which makes all of her tormentors speak directly into camera and proclaim their love for her.

Mark informs Dawn Missy was found, and that their neighbor, Mr. Kaspen, kidnapped her and kept her in an underground bunker beneath his shuffleboard court. Dawn asks if she was r**** and Mark says no, but he likely “videotaped her doing pirouettes”. Mark surmises Missy enjoyed being kidnapped, because she had her own TV and unlimited candy and McDonalds. It does sound like objectively ideal conditions for a young child. Mark also mentions Mrs. Kaspen will “probably” file for divorce. The “probably” is another great subtle dark joke in this film that Solondz is teeming with.

The film does have this common thread of the hyperbolic fates of where a suburban kid could end up, which range from being kidnapped, being sent to reformatory school, running away to the big city, and the revered university experience. All the children in the film have their fate laid out except Dawn. And the film shouldn’t have to require a resolution for her. However, the 2004 Todd Solondz film “Palindromes” has the Mark Weiner character inform the audience of Dawn’s eventual fate as a young adult, which covers a few more unfortunate options.

I met Todd Solondz in the early 2010’s when he visited my New Jersey film school. He said he was “probably done” making films, it was a passive comment from a non-entitled artist. He has gone on to make a few more films, and recently it was announced he would be making a film called “Love Child” but it has struggled to find funding. It’s so classic Solondz and even more-so Dawn, which really opens up a thought of maybe Dawn’s character wasn’t based on girls he knew when he was in school, but she personifies how he has also felt inside.

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Welcome to the Dollhouse…Have none of us left?