If David Lynch is America’s foremost purveyor of dark, subversive humor and skewed views of suburbia, then writer/director Todd Solondz is Lynch on a steady diet of Radiohead and Franz Kafka.
A self-acknowledged cynic, misanthrope and overall wierdo, Solondz peddles a brand of storytelling so off-the-beaten-path that it often fails to register with even the most jaded of Gen-Xers. He’s known for his unapologetic and brazenly honest portraits of suburbia and the pre-pubescent pecking order, themes that are fully realized in his sophomore effort, the indie-hit “Welcome to the Dollhouse.”
The ages of 12 to 14 are a chaotic time in any adolescent’s life, a period when one begins to find a sense of emotional/physical maturity as well as a niche in the caste system of middle-school. However, there’s no such luck for “Dollhouse” protagonist Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo, “The Princess Diaries”), a social pariah and below-average student with a face that only a mother could love.
But even Dawn’s parents show her no affection, and her misery is magnified even more in true middle-child fashion–her older brother is an overachieving, Ivy-League bound nerd and her younger sister is an exaggeratedly-adorable ballerina.
Unfortunately, Dawn finds little solace in school. After informing the teacher a classmate is copying off of her test, the cheater and Dawn are both given detention. She argues the decision, and her subsequent punishment is reading an essay on dignity aloud to the class.
Her attempt to exact revenge on spitball-shooting no-goodniks ends in disaster when she inadvertently nails a teacher in the eye. She has no one to sit with at lunch. Her locker is covered with obscenities. She’s greeted in the hallways with salutations of “Lesbo!” and “Retard!” She just cannot win.
Dawn’s salvation arrives in the form of Steve Rodgers (Eric Mabius, “Cruel Intentions”), a strapping, womanizing high-schooler and newly recruited member of her brother’s band. After being informed that he’ll sleep with just about anybody, Dawn decides that her road to popularity must start with bedding Steve. However, she takes a detour when the class bully attempts to rape her, and the two misfits form a curious bond as a result.
Of the many pleasures in watching this film, the most satisfying comes in watching Dawn persist. Whether it’s her grandma-cum-Liberace fashion sense, poor performance in school or sexual naivete, every viewer should empathize with Dawn in some way.
Solondz weaves an intricate web of characters across the bland New Jersey backdrop, but makes shifts in tone seamlessly. He handles taboo subjects like pedophilia with the same detached objectivity as he does the what-lies-beneath-suburbia cliches that have been so thoroughly mined by inferior films.
Most scenes are at once mordantly funny and mildly disturbing, evoking emotions in the viewer that mix about as willingly as the cliques Dawn so desperately wants to be a part of. But Solondz pushes forward with a reckless morbidity that offers no answers to life’s unpleasantries, and, if “Happiness” and “Storytelling” are any indication, he intends to keep it that way.
