WELCOME TO MARWEN: Zemeckis By Way Of Doll Horror

Based in sunny San Diego, Asher Luberto has only been…

“It becomes so inherently shallow that drowning as a means of escape becomes no longer possible.”

Lets face it, we all have fantasies of alternative worlds that breeze through our cluttered minds. From time to time, that gentle, reassuring gust of circumvention makes for a nice ally when we fall upon hard times. What would life be like if I won the lottery? How would things be different if I had found resplendence in true love? Wouldn’t life be so much more fulfilling if I missed this film?

That is the expedient notion behind Robert Zemeckis’s saccharine portrait of renowned photographer Mark Hogancamp, a victim of an unspeakable homophobic hate crime in the year 2000.

WELCOME TO MARWEN: Zemeckis By Way Of Doll Horror — source: Universal Pictures

Beaten within an inch of life, he finds therapy in his work. He constructs sophisticated miniature dolls not only to photograph as striking art, but to ingrain an image of safety. Marwen isn’t just a place for an adult to play with dolls, it is a realized microcosm of a life in shambles. It is an imaginary place for Hogancamp to face his lucid fears that seem to cloud the radiant sunshine that we, and his pals, know is hiding behind pursed lips and mournful saggy features. What is hiding behind this woeful misfire is a well-intentioned tribute to a real-life American hero. But the entire time you watch this, you can’t help but wish that the director would go back to the future that we envisioned for him during his glory years.

Another Zemeckis Castaway

With Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Forest Gump, Zemeckis’s inconsequential themes of nostalgia and artificial American hope usually makes for joyous artifice. So why doesn’t it work here? For starters, the “life’s like a box of chocolates” outlook doesn’t exactly fit the shoes of Hoagie. Perhaps a more suitable reference would be Doc’s confusion about how “heavy” the future is. 2018 is no joke people. And neither are the sociopolitical issues in the story here. Which makes the dramatic weight of mental trauma mixed with that trademark magical realism and dry humor a cringe-inducing wreck from the get-go. Which is why the movie bombs from the start.

Opening in cotton ball clouds clouded by thundering bombs, Hogancamp’s alter-ego Hoagie bursts into frame in a Hienkel He fighter jet ostensibly during WW2. He crashes, as he often does, just outside the made-believe Marwen – described in Jeff Malmberg’s lovely 2010 documentary as a 1:6 scale Belgian village created by the touch of an impassioned artist. (Though here, there is nothing remotely touching or alive in the performance capture animation). Hoagie is now poised in jungle warfare taking place in his own unkempt side lawn, where he encounters the defined jaw-lines and gibberish speaking Nazi’s who stand for the thugs who beat him senseless in a bar years prior.

All the – for a lack of a better word – playthings in Hoagie’s apocryphal adventures resemble, with meticulous intimacy, those who matter in his life. His band of “dames” don’t just arm themselves as therapy along the lines of the Freudian Theory, but they make useful in the front lines as well. Marching with clicking heels and clacking rifles, the Nazis of Marwen monotonously find themselves being shot, and tipped over like a kid playing with G.I. Joes.

Conclusion

The gallant gals marching by his side range from his favored porn star to the new girl on the block/love interest Nicol – you really can’t blame him, she is played with bubbly aplomb by the strawberry blush of Leslie Mann. The others are played animatedly by Dianne Kruger, Merritt Wever, Eiza Gonzalez, Gwendoline Christie, and Janelle Monáe.

One problem, to which there are many, is that, despite the world of Marwen being visually drab and narratively theoretical, it is the stuff in reality that seems to magnify the picture’s fakeness. Even the winning Steve Carrell seems out of place as our protagonist. As he is reduced to moaning and screaming – I would too, having read the script – trite lines along the lines of “I am who I am”, “women will go on to rule the world”, “die(!) you filthy scum.” Anyone, especially an inspiring figure like Hogancamp, deserves better than this mishmash of mixed messages, especially when his derangement is played at the expense of an awkward laugh. Many of the squibs being unquestionably crass are counterproductive to the way the audience may view the subject.

Which begs the question, does the film have a bigger picture? After a great deal of thinking I came to the conclusion that it went something like: one’s individualistic quirks are their best weapon. Not that that matters, really, since the final product is so inherently shallow that drowning as a means of escape becomes no longer possible. Since Welcome to Marwen plays like a car accident, you simply have to watch no matter what horrifying image is lurking just around the bend.

What were your thoughts on Welcome to Marwen? What is your favorite Zemeckis film? Let us know in the comments below!

Welcome to Marwen releases December 21, 2018.

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