.Dollhouse is a film like only Solondz can make them. Strangely comedic in many ways, it is ultimately horrendously tragic through the bleakness offered up at the end - there is no bright side, only reality, which is so often very ugly.
Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is an unattractive and unpopular junior high schooler with a nerdy older brother playing clarinet in a band in the garage and a younger sister who is perfect in every way. Dawn is picked on at school and only makes matters worse through clumsy attempts at retaliation, such as spitballing a teacher in the eye. One student even threatens to rape her, though after a failed first attempt he opens up to her and eventually seems to fall for her, though she rejects him in order to try and get it on with the hunky singer who has joined her brother's band.
Eventually, after a fight with her sister resulting in her going missing, Dawn realises that her only hope of some freedom from the agony of her rejected life is to try and simply fade into the background, something which is all too easy after she tries to find her sister, running away to New York, with her absence not even being noticed until she phones home to let her family know. In the end, she ends up back where she started, singing the anthem with her classmates, completely alone.
It is this hopeless ending that I so often associate with Solondz and his films. It is painfully pessimistic when taken in the context of storytelling and how the majority of narrative arcs conclude, both within the mainstream and independent sector. Generally there is some glimmer of hope, no matter how desperate the situation. Very rarely do all the characters end up dead, plagued by unhappiness, with no order restored to how you are encouraged to view the world. Here, however, that is entirely what you get. Dawn ends up with nothing, with less than how she started. Even though she took the bold and dangerous route, albeit motivated by guilt, of going to New York and sleeping on a street to try and find her sister, she is completely snubbed by her family and friends. There is no heroes welcome for her on her return, no thanks for her noble gesture, however misinformed.
The hardest thing with this film is that it probably is, in fact, much closer to the reality of what may play out, especially for a girl in Dawn's situation. A lot of parents may in fact be furious with her for running off without first telling them, especially considering it was in many ways Dawn's fault that the sister went missing. And for many people at her age, it just doesn't get any easier in the short term. They continue to struggle through and hope to find some sort of clique once they enter the elder realms of education and the freedom of movement and choice that provides.
Writer/director/producer Solondz takes us there with gusto. He doesn't pull any punches. His humour is sardonic more than it is hysterical - so dark as to almost disappear within itself. His themes are depressing and his characterisations often alienating, but these are the elements that lend to his singular voice. In a world of light he is the realistic twilight, the bitter reality check, and the deliberately stylised and stereotyped performances add a layer of horror to the film - those sorts of portrayals are much more suited to a fifties period drama (I just jumped to Far From Heaven...) where they fit in with the heightened moods and the period nature, the filtered retrospect applied to history. Here, they just serve to ram home the point that the more things change, the more they stay the same. And sometimes they even regress.
Dark and hard to watch, it is nonetheless a terrific film. Another 4 stars for Mr Solondz.
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