Welcome to Marwen (2018)

I don't remember if it was the actual trailer or just some screencaps, but I remember as if it was yesterday seeing Steve Carell playing with those creepy dolls and thinking, "how does someone like Robert Zemeckis end up making something like that?". That was the exact moment I decided to pass Welcome to Marwen. Then it was featured on one of Cinematic Corner's Rambling Friday and it sounded so bad I had to check it out. 

The film tells the true story of Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell) who was brutally assaulted by a group of white supremacists for admitting he wore women's heels. Having lost his ability to draw, Hogancamp created in his backyard a miniature World War II village called Marwen, which is filled with dolls corresponding to people he knows in real life, mostly strong women who have helped him in his recovery, as a coping mechanism and to create a more satisfying past for himself. 

In other words, it's the story of a man who can't deal with reality and therefore plays with dolls. Quite ridiculous and yet true, the story could have been interesting if properly executed which of course isn't the case here and the story is as interesting as watching paint dry. The way it is structured doesn't help either as there are essentially two plots — one about Hogancamp dealing with PTSD, the other about the people from Marwen — that feel disjointed, like they don't connect although they are connected to each other.

The main character isn't that likeable either. He comes off as a pathetic creep who does and says the most inappropriate things. This is a guy who collects — and wears — women's heels because it's like collecting the essence of women. What the actual fuck does that even mean? A foot fetish I could understand, but this? This brings creepiness to a whole new level. Also, for someone suffering from PTSD, he makes pretty violent reenactments. Not to mention how he treats women, he literally objectifies them, and they are okay with it. Steve Carell performance gets along with the script very well as it's dreadful — rather than a real human, Hogancamp feels like a Carell caricature.

Universal Pictures

The rest of the characters are just as terribly written as the lead and the rest of the cast is just as terrible as Carell as it's either over-the-top nice — some of the acting is so nice it's annoying — or comically evil — only it's not funny. At least some of them didn't put their real face in this.

Some of the stop motion animations look very nice, but that's pretty much it with the positive aspects. Welcome to Marwen does succeed at something though. It tells a story about pain and does a hell of a good job at being incredibly painful to watch. And it also made me burst out laughing when one of the characters said, "Hi, Mark", but only because I'm obsessed with The Room.