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Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Comedy · Drama · 1996

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.

Movie details

Welcome to the Dollhouse

“Not all girls want to play with dolls.”

1996 Comedy · Drama 1h 28m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.4 / 10

38.1K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

94 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

83 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Welcome to the Dollhouse?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Todd Solondz

Written by

Todd Solondz

Heather Matarazzo

Heather Matarazzo

Dawn Wiener

Brendan Sexton III

Brendan Sexton III

Brandon McCarthy

Eric Mabius

Eric Mabius

Steve Rodgers

Matthew Faber

Matthew Faber

Mark Wiener

D

Daria Kalinina

Missy Wiener

Angela Pietropinto

Angela Pietropinto

Mrs. Weiner

Bill Buell

Bill Buell

Mr. Wiener

Court is in session

Put Welcome to the Dollhouse on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.