donaldricco Right from the beginning, I thought, "Oh my god, the people that made Napoleon Dynamite" totally ripped this off!" I mean, the whole character of Napoleon, looks, affectations, everything, is just completely Dawn! What the? Even the brother seems to be the same ish! I know I might be late to the game, but is that even fair? I though N.D. was pretty cool, but now...As for the movie, well, junior high sucks, but for Dawn, it REALLY sucks! Heather Matarazzo plays her role perfectly, in this sad glimpse of teenage life. I felt so bad for her, all the way through. Sometimes, it was hard to watch, but there are moments of "lightheartedness" like the dancing sister, the awful cake, and cycloptian teacher! The end, end, is terrible, but this is a good movie, and the lyrics of "Welcome to the Dollhouse" are still rumbling around in my brain!

SnoopyStyle Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is the awkward middle child and social outcast 7th grader. She's got the hated nickname Wienerdog. Girls call her lesbo. Not even the other outcasts like her. The teachers find her annoying. Her parents ignore her. Her mother favors the youngest adorable Missy. Her older brother Mark is a nerd but he's a driven nerd. He gets the popular hunk Steve Rodgers to join his band and she's completely infatuated. Everybody picks on her especially class bully Brandon. She has the Special People Club in the backyard with her only friend the younger Ralphy. Steve Rodgers is actually nice to her and she misunderstands. Brandon starts taking an even more intense interest in her.Heather Matarazzo is amazingly awkward. It is cringe-worthy. Writer/director Todd Solondz is the king of the disturbing underbelly of society. The bullying is hard to watch. Dawn is not a nice girl but she is the clueless girl trying to find her way. She often hurts people just as others have hurt her. The movie is so uncomfortable that the audience has no choice but to laugh. And then it gets darker. Sometimes it goes over the edge like what happens to Missy. There's no real need to go that far but it's not a problem. At its center, there is the compelling Matarazzo.

Rich Wright You'd think, with all the humiliations that pile up on our mousy heroine over the course of this unbearably cruel film, the scene is set for a big revenge moment... A huge climax where she finally sticks it to all her enemies and proves her worth. You would be completely wrong. This is no 'triumph of the underdog' tale, just a survival story about the spirit of a kid who must endure almost consistent harassment everyday, whether she's at school or home... And we wonder, how does she avoid cracking up? Her family don't want anything to do with her, preferring to lavish their affections on her 'perfect' younger sister, while in class she's the target of bullies, and the teachers seem to consist of a bunch of patronising jerks.Even the few chinks of light that occasionally shine through the gloom of her existence are quickly snuffed out, so if you're looking for a movie to put you in a good mood you're better off watching Bambi's mother get shot on an endless loop. BUT... (and this is a massive BUT) it also happens to be one of the finest films I've seen in years. I had it on DVD but guess what... a massive scratch on the disc stopped it after half an hour. Even with that small taste, I knew it was something special. So I waited... And FINALLY the whole thing has been uploaded to Youtube... And may I just say, it fulfilled my initial reaction to it, and then some.A huge part of it's success lies squarely at the feet of Heather Matarazzo, who cuts a sympathetic (or perhaps just pathetic) figure as she shuffles through life, being abused and hated by all. It's a role which could easily have descended into caricature, but her breathtaking performance as a bright girl doomed by circumstance to eke out this rubbish existence makes her plight evermore tragic. The supporting parts hit the bullseye too, as everyone from her nerdy best (and only) friend to her tutu-wearing, sickly-sweet younger sibling infuse proceedings with a quality which is rarely seen.This is a great film... Not a happy one, but I guarantee a far more relatable flick than half the homogenised coming-of-age motion pictures out there. You know, the ones where everyone is beautiful, most of your fellow students are wealthy minorities and you burst into the chorus of a cheesy song every few minutes. Hmm, what could I possibly be talking about... 9/10

annevejb A prime quality that the DVD had for me was a price much higher than I usually can pay. Used to be that when I browsed IMDb details I sometimes looked at the tag at the top that showed availability in the different Amazon countries, availability as disk or tape or whatever. Way back then I purchased from local low cost shops, but it was interesting to browse. Then I progressed to purchases from the local, UK, Amazon but only for what I could pay for by cheque. Then I got to be able to pay electronically and it was suddenly possible to purchase low cost disks from second hand sources in the UK, Germany, USA and Canada, etc, via Amazon UK. The disk availability box at the top of an IMDb page was starting to have potential for real value, though I tended to search just in Amazon UK. Some of the really interesting disks were not available, some needed access to paying to a different country's Amazon, especially for low cost disks, but this was a massive start for being able to search for disks by title rather than from the more restricted range of what was available locally. Locally is still really useful, but it is more a serendipity sort of thing. Then the IMDb system changed. The disk availability button was not there. Then it was there but not showing the range of countries or versions of disks, if UK Amazon had the title in a variety of versions then either only one would be shown or an Amazon USA version would be shown. So, there was a basic indicator of availability, which is useful knowledge, just the way of searching the different stores was gone and at August 2009 this was still gone. So things were okay and unless an Amazon other than UK became the sole outlet for such as The Adventures Of Pete And Pete Season 3, some have a hunger for that Trachtenberg series, then things were tolerable. What happened instead was that Amazon USA became the sole outlet for Unfabulous Seasons 1 and 2. Also Zoey 101 seasons 3 and 4. While the prices are nothing like my ideal it was suddenly essential for me to get a payment method that Amazon USA accepts and in August 2009 I managed. Dollhouse. When I got to make my first order there was a copy of this at USA at a much lower price than I had ever noticed at Amazon UK or any other outlet. Except that order failed, it was not available for a delivery address in the UK. Two other items went through, though. It looks as if some traders are able to export, but not others. Later experiences told me that I still have a problem re availability of difficult to find titles. The outlook can seem bleak. The stuff that I had been noticing will mostly have not been available for export. * Dollhouse is from the year when season 3 of Pete, Pete appears and is a couple of years after Heather Matarazzo appeared in an episode of each of seasons 0 and 1. It is weaker than Pete, but in some ways it is as strong. I find that it echoes My Girl and Tideland, but from a different culture and in a more down to earth way. All have the main actor as of an appropriate age, scary but sense when musing on these sort of aspects. Dollhouse is bound to feel offensive to some who can accept My Girl. To me it has a reality that I can relate to more than with My Girl, though both stories are alien at the same time. Napoleon Dynamite, about a different age range and a different subset of symptoms, I now have to wonder how those characters would appear if that story was set at age eleven. Mysterious Skin and The Quiet expand on the range of faces of this. I found Dollhouse difficult to get into, but I vastly prefer this to Princess Diaries as that falls flat for me as soon as Mia gets the makeover, the point where one is supposed to gain empathy with Mia? Much is said of Dollhouse being a story about the difficulties that an ugly girl can face at age 12, but watch this with any care at all and it is obvious that this is a rather nice looking girl who is badly damaged by the ugly ways of those around her. One needs the right sort of helps to be able to get around that sort of thing and this story makes a loud comment about how real those helps can be. I have to like this feature a lot. The message board hints of some considering the three bad boys to be pure criminal types, but the strongest hint put in a criminal way. For me, Dollhouse gives a context that puts such into perspective. What this shows of their back to front reality, criminal seems an inappropriate label. That is the real strength of this feature. This is not about the apex of the pyramid of society, it shows a dunghill. Dawn comes out with some really putrid behaviour and there are some reviews here that consider that to be a reflection of her personality. To me, she is just showing some effects that can happen when one is blowing in the wind, chaff that does not have enough free will to escape being blown in that way. Rather than Dawn being horror I consider that she is blown into a horrifying and damaging situation, but one has had to have been in that sort of situation oneself to accept that is an aspect of her being a victim of horror.