Robert Zemeckis is a director who always pushes boundaries. Whether it be technology or what we're used to seeing in film, he's always pushing to show his audiences something they've never seen before. He's responsible for the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future. He's responsible for pairing a 1930s detective up with a cartoon rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He blew a giant hole through Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her. He got Tom Hanks two acting noms with Forrest Gump and Castaway. He blew us all away with what he did with motion capture for Beowulf, The Polar Express, and A Christmas Carol. So it makes sense that he would be drawn to a story where a man's inner emotional pain is expressed and presented through the lives of an art instillation of dolls from WWII. Welcome to Marwen is based off the 2010 documentary Marwencol and I can definitely see what Zemeckis was TRYING to do with the film, the end result winds up being a near colossal miss.
Steve Carell (who is making his dramatic rounds this year) plays Mark Hogencamp, a man who was beaten within an inch of his life for exposing the fact that he likes to wear women's shoes to five redneck/neo-nazis at a bar. They beat him so badly he can't write his own name or remember much of who he was before the attack. Who he was, was an artist. A pretty good one. So, because he can't draw anymore, Mark has turned to pictures. He's built a small replica of a WWII Belgian town, which he's named "Marwen". There, he's created a doll of himself as an American fighter pilot named Hoagie. The rest of the city is populated by women - all based off women in his life. They're under constant attack by the same five Nazis, defeating them every time. The film mostly sticks with the actions of the dolls, but when we're out of the imaginationland of Marwen, we're with Mark and his new neighbor Nicol (Leslie Mann) and their budding relationship. All the while the sentencing of Mark's attackers is a few days away and Mark is trying to decide whether or not he'll show up to face them.
The movie is a weird series of disjointed events that never really seem to connect with one another on a logial (or even symbolic) level. We realize immediately that Marwen and the dolls are Mark's coping mechanism. The five Nazis in Marwen represent the five men who beat Mark nearly to death. He's able to exact his bloody revenge on them over and over and over again in order to make himself feel better for a brief moment after these men have basically taken away everything Mark ever was. He's afraid of everything in the real world and never wants to face any sort of conflict, so the women represent his strength. They're the ones who are strong. They're the ones who help Hoagie defeat the Nazis every time. They keep Mark strong in the face of any adversity. Finally, there's the Belgian witch of Marwen who, with a magical glove, decides the fate of Hoagie and the women - this represents Mark's addiction to painkillers and his loneliness. See, the witch won't let Hoagie fall in love with any woman. Every time a woman gets close, the witch vanquishes her, therefore Hoagie/Mark must constantly be alone. These moments are intercut with Mark's life, but never really say much more than that on repeat. After the first two or three Marwen scenes, we understand the metaphor, but it doesn't give us much else. In fact, it stays in Marwen so long, repeating the same information so much... we lose sight of the story we're there to see - the story of Mark.
I think it was a lot of fun watching Mark's dolls enact his plots of revenge and get to see Mark's inner child/wild side come out - but I was more interested in Mark as a person. I wanted to see his recovery and how he pushed himself back up from near death (something that's only shown in a brief 20-second flashback). I want to know where he got the idea for Marwen, who the first doll Wendy was (Marwen is a combination of Mark and Wendy and we only get brief, cryptic hints of her existence), how Mark wound up addicted to pain pills, how Mark beat his addiction (something the movie shows us through the characters of Marwen, but never bothers to tell us how he REALLY did it), what the sentencing was of his attackers, etc. Yes, I realize that there is a documentary that answers all these questions, but Zemeckis treats Welcome to Marwen like we've all seen the documentary. Before writing this, I went and read about Mark Hogencamp, and I'll tell you that this man is far more interesting than what we're given in this film. If you're going to make a feature film based off a documentary, yes please take some artistic license, but don't forget who and what it is you're there to tell us about. Welcome to Marwen gets so bogged down in its CGI world, it forgets to tell us about the man entirely. The only thing it did was make me want to track down the doc.
The women of Marwen are fascinating and it's wonderful to see how Mark was essentially saved by the women in his life, but what the film does (again, because it spends too much time away from reality) is forget to show us these women in real life and the real impact they have on Mark's ACTUAL life. One of the dolls is based off a woman who brings him his medicine once a month. The only thing we learn about her is that she has a Russian accent. Janelle Monae pops up in a flashback as his physical therapist. She has about a twenty second scene and is severely underutilized for the rest of the movie. There's Carlala (Eiza Gonzalez) who works with Mark at the bar, Roberta (Merritt Wever) a kind woman who works at the hobby shop, Suzette who is based off of Mark's favorite porn star, and they all feel underdeveloped. This, again, is only because Zemeckis is more interested in showing us the extended metaphor of the dolls in action, rather than spend time with them in the real world. The only one who gets the bulk of the screen time is Nicol. However, Mark, who often finds delusion in Marwen, and confuses the characters in his artwork with the people in his life, almost makes the relationship between him and Nicol uncomfortable. A few of their scenes are almost cringe-worthy - yes, it's intentional, but it doesn't give me more insight into Nicol. However, everyone in it is exceptional for the limited screen time they're given. Steve Carell is a fantastic actor, I just wish he'd been given more to do than act out his fantasy scenarios every time a little bit of conflict arises for Mark.
The movie has been thrashed by critics and, while I understand their complaints, the film isn't nearly as bad as they say it is. It's also severely underperformed at the box office, so far making only 5 million of its 40 million dollar budget, leading to it being one of the biggest busts of the year. The film was destined to fail, however. It's one of these movies released during the holiday season that looks like it's full of hope, but no one really wants to watch a story about a man who was severely beaten for their Christmas movie. When the critics panned the film, which would've been the movie's only saving grace, it was DOA. It may find a little life when it comes out On Demand, just because Carell still has the starpower to reel in viewers. But honestly, I'd say the movie is nothing more than artistic fluff that doesn't do the story of the man real justice. It's entertaining to watch, but it raises more questions about Mark than it answers. If you want to know the real story, my recommendation is to check out the documentary because it sounds a lot more fascinating than the story presented in Welcome to Marwen.
C
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