Word: solondz
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directed by Todd Solondz at Kendall Square Cinema...
...Todd Solondz's celebrated new film "Welcome to the Dollhouse" brings a tight focus to a circle of hell never before examined on the silver screen--junior high. With relentless detail, Solondz recalls a world of harlequin posters, crop tops, and the first birthday parties where you didn't invite everyone in the class. But the film falters when Solondz pans out, stretches the plot, and attempts to shift from brutal realism to the much more abstract genre of farce...
...background trees will be in bloom. You can thank Robert Redford for that. Sundance Film Festival, the Park City, Utah, showcase he took over in 1985, is now so crucial for indie auteurs that many plan their movies around it. "They'll shoot in the spring," says Todd Solondz, whose Welcome to the Dollhouse won Sundance's top prize this year, "then edit in the summer and finish by the fall deadline so they can be shown at Sundance in January...
...Still, Solondz felt he knew the terrain well enough to be able to find the teenagers he'd need for the film just by sight. He and casting director Ann Goulder scoured New Jersey malls for girls who showed signs of self-loathing and boys who looked like bullies. That didn't work. The self loathers were too sad, and the bullies too evil. So they chose Heather Matarazzo, a sparky 11-year-old who had been acting professionally for five years, to play the nerdy, beleaguered Dawn Wiener. To nullify Heather's prettiness and self-assurance, Solondz "gave...
...next casting challenge was to get the cast's parents to sign off on the cruel, sexually frank script. "When the kids read it, they were unfazed. They'd say, 'I know a kid who has got it much worse than that,'" says Solondz. "But many of the parents were--and I think understandably--very unsettled by it." They used words like "sick" and "depressing." Heather's mom quashed some of the bad language, but still allowed her daughter to do a scene where she fantasizes about getting to third base...