Saturday, January 5, 2019

Welcome to Marwen [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (D+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

NY Times (P. Green) article about Mark Hogancamp


Welcome to Marwen [2018] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Robert Zemeckis along with Caroline Thompson) continues a career by Steve Carell of playing characters who often were marginalized, even considered wierdos or freaks, even as they were often simply soft-spoken and nice.

The current story tells the true story of  Mark Hogancamp (played by Steve Carell) from small-town upstate New York whose previous life was largely destroyed in 2000 when he was beaten-up / kicked in the head within inches of his life by five men after, drunk at a bar, he admitted to them that he was a cross-dresser.  After he woke up from his coma nine days later, he set about "healing" from this disaster by creating (and photographing) an entire miniature town called Marwencol out of barbie dolls and WW II action figures that symbolically told the story of what had happened to him.  The five men who had nearly killed him were portrayed, unsurprisingly, as Nazis, the women who had helped him heal, dressed in various 1940s era pinup costumes, would fight the attacking Nazis back, but they'd always return ... to try to ambush him again.

It makes for one heck of a story even if perhaps not for the average crowd.  It asks us the question: why can't we sometimes just leave nice / quiet people alone.


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