Welcome to Marwen is the Robot Chicken of Dramas

Welcome to Marwen (2018)

Welcome to Marwen was a drama about a real artist who was the victim of a hate crime and how he overcame and used his art as a vehicle for recovery. That is the entire plot and it was all shown in the trailers. The movie had the same issue that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty had; it had a better trailer than movie. The core of the most interesting parts was shown in the trailer, but there was enough additional content to still be enjoyable. The scenes with the dolls were vibrant and interesting. They were cleverly shot and carried the movie. The scenes with real people were much less interesting. The human characters were not given much depth besides Steve Carell’s Mark. I was hoping that the strong female cast would be given more of a chance to shine, but they were mostly set-pieces in the movie, just like they were to Mark. In the movie, Mark viewed the women around him as just part of his story and it was very creepy. I realize that it was partly due to his brain damage, but Mark was weird. But just like in Foxcatcher, Carell was able to play the character brilliantly and make even his weirdest moments sympathetic, largely because the villains were Nazis. Welcome to Marwen was a movie that had too good of a trailer that overshadowed the actual film. I give Welcome to Marwen 4 out of the 6 creepy personified dolls in his town.