Welcome to Marwen (2018)

Summary: Mark Hogancamp, who is a bit of a cross dresser, is attacked and left for dead by a number of thugs outside a bar in his home town. He is left with little memory of life before the event, and goes through rehab, resumes his life as an artist and develops a model WWII Belgian village outside his front door, populated by German soldiers and a number of female fashion dolls which he has modified to be tiny versions of ladies he knows and admires. They are armed and protect Cap’n Hogie, a miniature version of himself. If he goes out he takes a miniature jeep with him carrying the ladies. In real life he has to go to court to provide a victim statement but is reluctant to do so, he has powerful prescription drugs which can be misused, and most important of all, a young woman, Nicol, moves in across the road, causing Mark to make a model of her, and develop feelings for the real person. How will it all go?

Content: Some of the mannequins are seen sexily dressed, and slightly unclad some of the time. But no sex or nudity. At various times the models engage in combat, the ladies always killing the German soldiers, although when the combat strays into Mark’s real life it is difficult for him. The attack on  him is seen and distressing it is. As well as the scenes where the models interact, we also see Mark photographing the dioramas, and the results when he has them printed. In time he has an exhibition. He interacts with Nicol who is friendly but she has an admirer who is threatening.

A View: The critics, except for the guy at Roger Ebert, did not like this much and the $13 million box office did not get anywhere near covering the $40 million budget. So, a box office bomb. I admit that I had been influenced by the critics and did not go to the cinema to see it in 2018, but viewing it on TV I thought it was pretty good. The dolls are great, even though it is necessary to accept the fact that Mark has made them pretty sexy, but why not, that is the choice he has. So in my view, worth a watch, even for a small fee.

I have critiqued a few of Robert Zemeckis’s films on this site, starting with everyone’s favourite Back to the Future, but also Cast Away and Beowulf.