Welcome to the Dollhouse and Todd Solondz’s Weird New Jersey

When I was 11 years old, I was obsessed with my hardcover copy of Weird New Jersey. I had become consumed by the idea that the seemingly ordinary place I had lived my whole life held deep, scary secrets—whether they be a Satanic cryptid lurking in the Pine Barrens or the literal gates of Hell hiding underneath a manhole in Clifton. I’d spend hours flipping through my encyclopedic guide to the ghastly side of the Garden State, a hobby which eventually culminated in my making an entire poster board presentation, featuring the Hoboken Monkey-Man alongside cannibalistic albinos, for my fifth grade final project. Though it didn’t reach me until my later teenage years, Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse—and the filmmaker’s entire sickly suburban oeuvre—is a perfect continuation of the state’s uncanny canon.

Despite never veering into the supernatural, Welcome to the Dollhouse portrays a bleak otherworldliness that is somehow entirely recognizable as residential New Jersey. Somewhere between bustling metropolis and sleepy suburb, the laws of nature seem to shift ever so slightly, the carefree innocence housed in white picket-fenced homes haunted by a looming threat of violent vulgarity at every unexpected turn.

Or maybe that’s just what adolescent rude awakenings feel like everywhere. For Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo), the highly unpleasant experience of puberty is exacerbated by an oppressively superficial suburban society that already deems her ugly, weird and unfit for extensions of basic human decency. Dubbed “Wiener-dog” by her classmates, the 11-year-old seventh grader navigates her complicated feelings towards her rigid family, equally unpopular friends and laughably unattainable crushes all while trying to maintain her composure. The fact that she lives in New Jersey is largely negligible when it comes to her everyday experiences, yet the unrelenting cruelty—both targeted at and perpetrated by Dawn—comes off as uniquely New Jerseyan to me.

After submitting my ode to N.J. oddities, I spent the summer following fifth grade binge-reading other classic urban legends (with this behemoth chronicling 666 “absolutely true” tales as my ultimate companion), unaware that by burying my nose in the fearsome fabrications of others, I was rendered totally unprepared for the more minuscule cruelties of the world that awaited me. Maybe this is why it scarred me so deeply when my own animal-based nickname, the curt but cutting “cow,” started making the rounds soon after I started the sixth grade, eventually morphing into a humiliating chorus of moos trailing behind me as I’d walk from class to class.

It’s odd to have that excruciating but plainly common experience accurately reflected in a coming-of-age film, itself a comparatively harsh divergence from the majority that tend to focus on best friendship, budding romance and awkward girls growing into desirable women. Welcome to the Dollhouse dares to confront this myth with brutal honesty and resulting hilarity. Particularly when it comes to Dawn’s character undergoing any sort of transformation—whether it be of appearance, conscience or worldview—the film subverts a subgenre that overwhelmingly opts to obfuscate the frustrating stagnation of this particular age. Dawn does not become beautiful just because she desperately wishes to be so; she doesn’t learn from her mistakes even when they directly hurt her friends and family.

Instead of refusing to engage in the spiteful nature of the community which regularly ostracizes her, Dawn weaponizes the same insults she suffers in order to make others feel similarly small. Days after being confronted by a horde of cheerleaders that claim she’s a “lesbo,” Dawn hurls the insult at her younger sister Missy—an effortlessly girlish and dainty ballerina who is the undisputed favorite child—after being scolded for drinking soda in the TV room when their mother has instructed them otherwise. When pejoratives fail to diminish Missy’s status as the favorite, Dawn resorts to violent fantasies. In the dead of night, she procures a hammer which she has stashed under her pillow, sneaking across her and Missy’s shared bedroom to hover over her little sister’s bed. Hammer in hand, she yearns to bash Missy’s pretty little sleeping head in, to stain perfectly coiled blonde ringlets with blood and brain matter.

After a moment, she sighs. “You are so lucky,” Dawn whispers as she climbs back into her own bed.

Solondz’s depiction of a violent adolescent fascination rings embarrassingly true. My own fascination with the mysterious and macabre eventually manifested into an (in hindsight unbearably cringy) edginess that felt like thorny protection against a sick, sad world hellbent on hurting me for being different. Of course, I now realize that being a 14-year-old mall goth was not the epic act of transgression I once thought—but in downtrodden losers like Dawn, teenage me saw my not-so-distant past on full display. Violence becomes a comforting realm to dabble in, particularly when the beige sameness of your surroundings begs for an accent of blood spatter and controversy.

Of course, when horrifying reality converges with boring everyday life, the outcome is usually much less titillating. After Dawn passive-aggressively withholds a note instructing her sister to carpool home from ballet, Missy goes missing. Detectives swarm the Wiener’s unremarkable suburban home. Mom can’t stop crying long enough to form a coherent sentence; Dad succumbs to a full-blown panic attack and refuses to leave bed. Dawn tells no one of her blunder, instead taking it upon herself to run off to New York City in order to search for Missy after it’s revealed that her signature pink tutu has been identified in Times Square.

When Dawn falls asleep in an alcove after searching the city in vain, she is jolted awake by a piercing scream. “Dawn, help me!” Missy shrieks as a non-descript man runs with her under his arm like a provincial Frenchman with a baguette.

“Let go of my sister!” Dawn shouts just as the culprit is about to enter the subway. Startled, he unhands Missy, who runs towards Dawn with a loving embrace. Suddenly, their mother rounds the corner. “Oh, Dawn!” she yells breathlessly. “You’re the best daughter a mother could have. I love you so much.”