Welcome to the Dollhouse | Rotten Tomatoes

Welcome to the Dollhouse

R

Now Playing

1 hr. 27 min.

Comedy

Drama

List

93%

54 Reviews

Tomatometer

86%

25,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Middle-school student Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo) faces degradation at school -- where she is teased constantly -- and at home. The middle child between nerdy older brother Mark (Matthew Faber) and perky younger sister Missy (Daria Kalinina), Dawn can't seem to find a place to belong. Although she has a crush on a cute boy (Eric Mabius) whom her brother knows, she can only catch the attention of bully Brandon (Brendan Sexton Jr.), who threatens her to show affection.

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Critics Consensus

An outstanding sophomore feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse sees writer-director Todd Solondz mining suburban teen angst for black, biting comedy.

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Tera K

I decided to check out this film because I find Todd Solondz to be an interesting director and enjoyed it! It's definitely weird at times and not something I'd recommend to everyone, some of the scenes and dialogue involving Brandon felt unnecessary at times. But the film was overall good and the cast did well, it was witty and the whole bit about Dawn's little sister was really great.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

08/14/23

Full Review

Steve D

Far too odd for me to enjoy.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Aldo G

Kids can be cruel. So can movie directors. That's my reaction to director Todd Solondz's work on his second feature film. His portrayal of a 7th grader who is almost driven to murder because of how alienated she feels is cruel. That doesn't make it a bad movie. It just makes Welcome To The Dollhouse unwelcomingly depressing.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/22/22

Full Review

wayne k

Todd Solondz is not a widely known name in the film world, but he's crafted some of the most shocking and controversial film of the last few decades, and deserves a lot more credit than he gets. A few years ago I seen what's likely his most famous, or infamous, movie, Happiness. Like most people, I ended the film with my jaw on the floor. Welcome To The Dollhouse, the movie he made before Happiness, is full of his trademark dark humour and social satire, following an unpopular junior school student who gets mistreated by seemingly everybody who knows her, finding no solace at home or in her classroom. It's exaggerated stereotypes highlight and satirise the kind of people we meet throughout our lives, and the situations our heroine finds herself in are often over the top and even unlikely, but it's taking place in a world where things are amped up, so it makes thematic sense for them to be like that. It's brutal, stark and doesn't pull its punches, and as such I can see it disgusting and alienating certain audiences. It's message of school and young adolescence being unrelentingly crap isn't necessarily true, but I'm sure it'll resonate with many people. It's not the kind of movie you'd watch often, but it'll be a difficult one to get out of your head. So if you like your movies dark and disturbing, Welcome To The Dollhouse has you covered.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Dave S

In Welcome to the Dollhouse, writer and director Todd Solondz doesn't pull any punches when outlining how difficult early adolescence can be. An introverted seventh-grader, Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is bullied by her classmates, tormented by her insensitive parents, and annoyed by her two siblings. Understandably, she has some self-esteem issues. Promoted as a comedy, anyone going into this with expectations of big belly laughs is going to be disappointed. Whatever humor there is, it's pitch black. Matarazzo, in her screen debut, is fantastic, no doubt eliciting pathos from even the most hardened viewer. While the whole point of the movie seems a bit fuzzy, it will, if nothing else, force you to consider the impact your actions have on others…hopefully.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

10/28/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The movie has almost no climb max it sucks, the main charecter is so soft spoken it's annoying. The movie highlights how terrible her life was and the movie fat shames, and calls dawn ugly almost every minute. Also it shows that dawn should obey men and go for the bad boy. I almot turned the movie off a million times. It boerd me out of my mind

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

Full Review

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Todd Solondz

Director

Heather Matarazzo

Dawn Wiener

Daria Kalinina

Missy Wiener

Matthew Faber

Mark Wiener

Angela Pietropinto

Mrs. Wiener

Bill Buell

Mr. Wiener

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Kevin Maher

Times (UK)

... There are deep and uneasy truths about emergent sexuality and the Darwinian atavism of the playground.

Rated: 4/5

Mar 10, 2023

Full Review

Anton Bitel

Little White Lies

Nobody comes out of this looking pretty, and dignity – a key word in the film – is always far removed from these characters’ Darwinian struggles to survive their day without being rejected, mistreated or much, much worse.

Mar 4, 2023

Full Review

David Ansen

Newsweek

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

Feb 27, 2018

Full Review

Michelle Kisner

The Movie Sleuth

Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse is one of the genre's most provocative, impactful, and poignant entries.

Mar 13, 2023

Full Review

Taylor Baker

Drink in the Movies

Episode 36: Love in the Time of Monsters / Barbarella / Welcome to the Dollhouse / Johnny Guitar

Rated: 70/100

Oct 3, 2021

Full Review

Josh Larsen

LarsenOnFilm

...a vision of middle-school awkwardness so cringe-worthy you'll be tempted to look away.

Rated: 3.5/4

Jul 18, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

Middle-school student Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo) faces degradation at school -- where she is teased constantly -- and at home. The middle child between nerdy older brother Mark (Matthew Faber) and perky younger sister Missy (Daria Kalinina), Dawn can't seem to find a place to belong. Although she has a crush on a cute boy (Eric Mabius) whom her brother knows, she can only catch the attention of bully Brandon (Brendan Sexton Jr.), who threatens her to show affection.

Director: Todd Solondz
Executive Producer: Donna L. Bascom
Screenwriter: Todd Solondz
Production Co: Sony Pictures Classics, Columbia TriStar
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 15, 1995, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $4.8M
Sound Mix: Surround

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