Welcome to the Dollhouse

School can be hell for anyone unwilling or unable to make it to the popularity polls. This is how it is for the awkward Dawn (bespectacled, impossible outfits). Every day she shyly treads her way to a seat in the school canteen, where nobody wants to sit next to her.

Solondz”s melancholic portrait of the confused period called adolescence is full of beautifully wry scenes like when Dawn is forced to talk on the subject of “dignity” in front of her class. She shyly reads out her text in a soft voice, while her teacher keeps taunting her to speak up, thereby undermining Dawn”s dignity. The insecure Dawn tries to fight back, but is unable to cope socially in the hostile school environment, where her schoolmates react with fierce cruelty to lonely, maladjusted teenagers like Dawn – Solondz”s keen observational eye gazes on her with great compassion, maturity and gloom.