When a devastating attack shatters Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell) and wipes away all memories, no one expected recovery. Putting together pieces from his old and new life, Mark meticulously creates a wondrous town where he can heal and be heroic. As he builds an astonishing art installation—a testament to the most powerful women he knows—through his fantasy world, he draws strength to triumph in the real one. In a bold, wondrous and timely film, Welcome to Marwen shows that when your only weapon is your imagination…you’ll find courage in the most unexpected place.
Out on DVD now, is Welcome To Marwen. Before watching this film with no idea what it was about beyond the fact that it starred Steve Carrell. I had no idea on the genre or style, nor did I know that it was based on a true story. This is directed by Robert Zemeckis, a man known for his work on Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, and The Polar Express.
The first that caught my eye was the superb facial CGI. This came down to the fact that initially, I didn't even realise that it was computer generated. There were enough details in the figures, natural enough movement, and plenty of environmental noise and action, which combine to create a scene that looked more like a highly saturated colour grading than CGI (at least until I noticed the ankle joints on the doll).
The actions of these fantastical alive dolls bring back fond memories of the 1998 film, Small Soldiers, which I cherished as a child. Quite often the tone will shift, and the behaviours become more embellished, coming off more like the latest iteration of The Sims game franchise.
The film switches between the live-action "real-life" of Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carrell), and the fictional town that he has created to deal with his PTSD after a serious assault. While visually, the transitions between both worlds (and at times, the merging of the two) were gorgeous and seamless, you can't help but feel that more effort was put into the visual elements of the film than the story.
The actual real story behind the film is incredibly dramatic but in a much more subdued manner. Welcome To Marwen makes changes to the story and adds in so many extra little pieces, that it all becomes a convoluted mess of over-explained metaphors and unnecessary fantasy scenes that really took the emphasis away from the human story. The story of a man that was attacked and nearly killed for cross-dressing, who was helped by family and friends, and in turn were introduced into this miniature world as their own characters.
The entire emotional pull of the film is weak. We only see the post-attack Mark, so we have no foundation to understand what was lost. The supporting cast that forms the basis of his team of ass-kicking woman, while reasonably prevalent in the miniature town, don't have significant roles in the real-life arc, many only having one or two lines of dialogue in the film.
We don't spend enough time getting to know Mark, and it leads to a false representation of his character. His character is almost portrayed in a manner that makes him come across as acting in an overtly sexual and fetishized manner, as explanations for his behaviour are whittled down to a single line of dialogue. This one-dimensional, underdeveloped version of Mark comes across more like a pervert and creep, which goes against the point of the film and makes the protagonist unlikeable. The film should be pushing the harmless nature of his actions in regards to its effect on others, and the incredible healing capabilities that it has for Mark himself.
The best way to describe the issues with the film is that it is self-indulgent. Robert Zemeckis has taken on this story and completely lost sight of the real message. Zemeckis has been swayed by wanting to show off the glorious CGI technology and putting in unnecessary references to his own prior (read: better) films for no reason than to draw attention to himself.
There is a nice story in here about a group of women in a community that help a man as he tries to overcome PTSD. With a focus on the actual human characters, and developing the protagonist properly, this could have been a brilliant film.
As it is, Welcome To Marwen, is convoluted, inconsistent tonally, and has brilliant CGI to show you scenes that have little to no effect on the plot. Perhaps it is because Hogencamp was brutally assaulted for admitting that he was a crossdresser, that his character was altered and downplayed. Ultimately, it was a disservice to the story.
If the story does pique your curiosity at all, the better choice would be to watch the documentary Marwencol, which has a much more emotional appeal to it.