Movie Review: Welcome To Marwen (2018)

Damn, Steve Carell looks better in heels than I do.

Stars: Steve Carell, Falk Hentschel, Matt O’Leary, Leslie Mann
Director: Robert Zemeckis

Synopsis: After a vicious beating/hate crime that nearly took his life and stole the ability to draw away from artist Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell) he changed his form from drawing to photography. The subject he chose were dolls and through his art he was also able to create a world and a story that worked as a kind of therapy to help him heal emotionally.

Opinion: This is such a wonderful re-telling of a rather tragic and very emotional story. Based on real life events, it’s an exploration of trauma, healing and the different ways and methods humans need to embrace in order to work through tragedies in their lives. This movie is essentially showing you a small snapshot of the life of artist Mark Hogancamp and the aftermath of being almost beaten to death in a hate crime. You’re watching things from his real-life perspective, day to day activities like going to work and to the store etc and also from the CGI outlandish, crazy and at times quite funny perspective of his dolls. While that sounds strange, it’s very clearly his outlet, his way of compartmentalising what happened to him and the people in his life who helped bring him back and save him (the ladies of Marwen) and through that outlet he also creates beautiful art. There are a lot of very big issues acknowledged within this movie, things such as anxiety, being different, PTSD, hate crimes and a multitude of others that are important and occur with many people in the world so seeing them portrayed very real and open on screen is refreshing in an honest and also very heart-breaking way. Steve Carrell, as always, does a wonderful performance as do the rest of the cast even as computer generated dolls shooting up the town and blowing away Nazis. It’s a strange but wonderful viewing experience that, is a little disjointed and roughly put together at times but still really allows you to bond with and share part of the journey of healing with Mark.

Them Feels Though: This gets a bit emotional at times, I won’t lie I did find tears running down my cheeks on more than one occasion. Not full sobbing, just those silent tears that kind of sneak out, you know what I mean? Anyway, just make sure to have a tissue handy, just in case.

Rating: