Just Because He's A Faggot Doesn't Mean He's An Asshole.

Todd Solondz does know how to make 'em depressing, as we saw back here with Happiness. Preceding that one by a few years, however, was his breakthrough Sundance winning title Welcome To The Dollhouse.


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.

I'm Living In A State Of Irony.

With Todd Solondz it is always best to go in emotionally prepared. Woe betide the poor soul who inadvertently picks up a copy of, say, Pallindromes and goes home expecting to see a film about word games and poetry. Or his most misleading title - Happiness.

Yes, Happiness is about the quest for exactly that in the lives of the characters, but they sure as shit don't find it. The film is centred by one family, parents and two daughters, but the driving forces of the film are more those that are around them, satellites of the family core. Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a successful writer, too clever for her own good, unable to get anything and anyone she wants into bed with her, but convinced that they are all empty. Her neighbour Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is fascinated by her but can't get the nerve up to ask her out, instead left to calling her with obscene phone calls. She eventually rejects him, and he is devastated, unable to notice that another of his neighbours (Camryn Manheim) is quite possibly the person he needs.


Helen's sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) is happily married with kids, to psychiatrist Bill (Dylan Baker) - what she doesn't realise is that he is a pedophile. But she'll find out! Oh, she'll find out. After he's molested a couple of friends of his eleven year old son, that is.


Their older sister Joy (Jane Adams) is a struggling musician trying to discover her place in the world. Alone and unsure why, she quits her job at a call centre when she discovers the oppressively anonymous culture there, instead becoming a teacher at an immigrant centre, where she embarks on a brief relationship with Vlad (Jared Harris), the only time she really seems happy. Of course, he is simply using her, taking her happiness and her money.


Their parents Mona and Lenny (Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara) are in the process of splitting up. Not divorcing, no, no one ever said anything about divorce, but they're no longer together as man and wife. Lenny just wants to be alone, and soon discovers that he is in fact incapable of emotion.


It's body blow after body blow. A great script from Solondz keeps you interested in these characters who are in their own ways despicable, but also so identifiable as that bit inside of you that is always afraid of failing to find that holy grail of life. It's not an easy film to watch - while the molestation scenes are never shown, the way Bill talks is exceptionally graphic in a very simple kind of way, making it very hard to listen to. And then just the sheer desperation of all of the characters, the continual moroseness of the world in which they live, is very hard to bear. The performances are uniformly great, and it is hard to single out any particular actor for praise, as, especially within their own little sub-world, each of them holds down exactly what they need to. It was nice to see Flynn Boyle and Manheim (also co-stars on The Practice, back in the day) playing around on screen - I can't remember the last time I saw either of them.


Harsh, hostile and unfair, Happiness highlights those elements of humanity we'd all like to pretend weren't there - a Solondz specialty. 4 stars.