83
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertBut I'm making Welcome to the Dollhouse sound like some sort of grim sociological study, and in fact it's a funny, intensely entertaining film.
- 100San Francisco ExaminerSan Francisco ExaminerTodd Solondz's grand prize winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival lapses into satire, but its parodistic slant only exaggerates what is truthful, making the unpleasantness of that awkward age all the more disturbing and hilarious. It's a horror film starring reality in the monster role.
- 90The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinWith a fine vengeance along with flashes of great, unexpected tenderness, Mr. Solondz lethally evokes every petty humiliation that his seventh-grade heroine can't wait to forget.
- 89Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisAs Dawn, Matarazzo isn't afraid to evoke the horrors of puberty with a straightforward charmlessness: She's gawky, unhappy, and confused, while her tingling of sexual desire downright gives you the shivers.
- 80Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonIt scores its comic points with dire one-liners, an astringent dearth of sentimentality and only-in-America developments.
- 80EmpireCaroline WestbrookEmpireCaroline WestbrookIt may not be to everybody's taste, but this is a daring antidote to its more saccharine cousins.
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliIn this impressive debut, Solonz doesn't pull any punches in conveying the side of junior high that "The Wonder Years" never depicted: the naked cruelty that some boys and girls suffer at the hands of their classmates, their teachers, and even members of their own family.
- 75San Francisco ChroniclePeter StackSan Francisco ChroniclePeter StackSolondz ("Fear, Anxiety and Depression") is almost unrelenting in his quirky fixation with the adolescent outsider and he pursues visions of everyday human injury nearly to the point of caricature. But he stops just short, and this amusingly twisted film mixes humor and heart-tugging sadness with a disturbing vitality.
- 75Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittTodd Solondz's movie begins like a suburban ugly-duckling tale with many comic overtones, but it grows darker as it goes along, evoking dangers that youngsters must be alert to in today's world - from drugs to child abuse - and showing how cruel children can be to one another when grownups aren't around.
- 60Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumThis obsessive movie, awarded the grand jury prize at the Sundance festival, may not quite live up to its advance billing; the subject is powerful, but the filmmaking often seems slapdash, and the final half hour dithers.