Movie Reaction: Welcome to Marwen

Formula: Small Soldiers - comedy

Every couple years there's a Welcome to Marwen that gets a Christmas release. It was Downsizing last year. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty a few years ago. Maybe Carnage or We Bought a Zoo a couple years before that. These are movies that are sold to look like comedies that the whole family can enjoy. They often have some high concept idea that makes them look whimsical and inventive. These movies almost always underwhelm because the audiences that do show up leave feeling swindled. "This isn't what I signed up for" should be an option on the cinescore survey for these. I don't blame the studios for misleading with the advertising either. They'd be impossible to sell as they actually are. The only hope to turning a profit is to trick some people into seeing the movie. And they're stuck with the good release date because they always come from powerful directors spending clout earned from previous hits.

I can see the appeal of Welcome to Marwen, especially for a director like Robert Zemekis, who loves finding new ways to play. This is based on the true story of Mark Hogancamp (as played by Steve Carrell). He barely survived a beating from five guys that left him unable to remember much from his past. More importantly, he was an artist who could no longer draw. So, to scratch that artistic itch and as a sort of therapy, Mike set up an art installation at his house: a miniature scale WWII city called Marwen, populated by dolls who represent the different people in his life. That's the appeal to Zemickis. While Mike is only able to take snapshots of Marwen, Zemickis brings the town and dolls to CGI-life.

The movie switches between real life and Marwen constantly. The adventures in Marwen almost always reflect what's going on in Mike's life. An attactive neighbor moves in across the street; a new woman shows up in Marwen. Mike has anxiety about going to court to face his attackers; a bunch of Nazis attack Marwen. It's a cool idea. The style of those Marwen scenes is different from anything I've seen before. It's like a less rendered motion capture. So, the dolls clearly look like Carrell, Leslie Mann, Janelle Monae, Merritt Weaver, or others while not being all that detailed. The animation is smooth. This is a logical next step for a guy who made that weird looking Beowulf movie a decade ago and played with CGI as far back as Death Becomes Her 26 years ago.

Welcome to Marwen just plain didn't work for me. The tone is all over the place yet there's a tidiness to the story. It's just not that cinematic. I know nothing about the true story, so I'm approaching this like I would any movie. I don't buy it. The events of the story line up too neatly. His trial is the same day as his art exhibit. Leslie Man moves in across the street at the most opportune time. She has an ex-boyfriend who is a jerk and a non-character. Everyone except for that ex-boyfriend is nice to Mike in a way that ignores how weird he is. I get the sense that he was always a peculiar guy. He's pretty obsessive and poor with social interaction. He's a bit of a sleaze too. He has almost no filter. I don't figure all of that is a result of his attack. But, no one even seems put off by it. Like, Mann's character moves in. She's barely interacted with Mike and he makes a doll of her. That's a situation where it's fine to be a little thrown off, but she seems honestly charmed by it. It's really not until Mike forces her hand in the most extreme way that she ever seems rattled by him. It didn't feel real. Marwen is supposed to be his idealized world, but his real life is already pretty catered toward him.

A lot of the movie is couched in mystery. Everything in Marwen represents something for Mike. Normally the dolls represent other people, but that isn't always the case. The way that all the identities are revealed annoyed me more than anything. Mike already can't remember anything about his life before the attack. Why do we need to play games with the part of his life that he does remember too? And the climactic reveal felt like such an afterthought. Like, I thought the movie already revealed this problem of his and didn't care. It turns out, it's actually his problem all along and getting rid of that is treated like some magical panacea.

Then there's the shoes. Left out in all the advertising for the movie is why Mike was beat up. It's because he likes to wear women's shoes. I'm pretty irritated that they've hidden this about the movie, because it directly conflicts with the message of the movie: be who you are. The movie repeatedly brings up Mike's love of heels and how there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. Then hiding it from the advertising suggests that the studio disagrees. There's a duplicity at work that bothers me. There's also a weird homophobic vibe I picked up on. Mike likes wearing women's shoes, but he's totally not gay. In fact, he's super horny for women. In fact, his favorite actress is a porn star. See. Not gay. I kept waiting for the Seinfeld "Not that there's anything wrong with that" after every time the topic is hinted at.

Welcome to Marwen is a movie I expect to hear strongly negative feelings about or hesitantly positive ones. I'm not sure whose favorite movie this could be. Personally, I came out of the movie a little negative about it and looking for ways to turn it into a favorable opinion. I want to like a Zemeckis movie with a cast like this. Instead, over the last couple days, I've gotten more and more negative about it. It's a surprisingly dark movie. It's much more violent than I expected (mostly doll violence, but still). It's really not the comedy or the feel-good movie the trailers paint it as. The movie appears to be ashamed of what it's about even though that directly conflicts with the message of the movie. Even the casting in the movie is deceptive. (You've already scene every second of Janelle Monae in live-action in the movie.) Imagination is not the same as good unconventional storytelling. Something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't good because it's inventive. It's good because it uses that inventiveness to tell a good story well. That's the biggest disappointment of Welcome to Marwen. It has a great idea that it doesn't know what to do with.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend