Meh. I hide decent hope for Robert Zemeckis’s (Cast Away, Allied) Welcome to Marwen. Parts of the trailer looked corny, but so did parts of his trailer (as well as the movie) for Forrest Gump, the Oscar winner for Best Picture in 1994. Zemeckis has also succeeded with unique films such as Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, The Polar Express, and more. Combined with the exceptional talent possessed by Steve Carell (Beautiful Boy, The Way Way Back), there was a legitimate chance that the pair could make this odd story work.

I don’t think either can be at fault for this mediocre film. Sure, there is a story here, but it was probably better told in the 2010 documentary Marwencol. Perhaps Zemeckis got a little cocky and thought he could further dramatize a story and turn it into a Lars and the Real Girl type of movie, a film which, despite my original reservations, I ended up loving and a film that I can’t recommend enough. Comparisons between these two movies were made from the first trailer and continued throughout. Unfortunately, in the end, Zemeckis and Carell could not achieve the same mastery that Craig Gillespie and Ryan Gosling could eleven years earlier. The problems with Welcome to Marwen were numerous and far exceeded most of the positives brought to the table.

The main problem I had with the movie was the doll animation. And if the animation wasn’t corny enough, it was the storyline of his dolls. Now, while I am well aware that the animation didn’t take place on the screen like it did on the screen and that all of the character interactions and moving scenes were part of his imagination, the storyline of a small all-woman town in Belgium during World War II was real. It helped Mark Hogancamp (Carell) begin to cope with the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) caused by a hate crime in 2000 in which he was jumped outside of a bar by five young men after he admitted to them that he sometimes wore women’s shoes. Still, I’m not sure it was a storyline many of us could relate to or enjoy. The beat down outside of the Luny Tune Saloon in Kingston, New York, left him near death and erased him of every single one of his emotional memories. He still knew his basic facts, but he couldn’t remember anything personal about his life before, including his marriage, his heavy addiction to alcohol, and his divorce resulting from his drinking.

Furthermore, it ripped Mark of his ability to participate in his number one passion of drawing. Broken down, he creates a 1:6 scale city of Marwen, where he is the only man, a World War II fighter pilot who is shot down by enemy forces and taken in by the city’s women. There is a hotel, a coffee shop, a saloon, and others, each owned by five different women. Occasionally, German soldiers will enter Marwen, but their success in taking over the city is always short-lived. All of the women in Marwen are based on women in his life, save for one, a Belgian witch named Deja Thoris, which seems to stifle any long-term happiness Mark can reach in his city.

It felt like there was too much Marwen in Welcome to Marwen. And I wonder if we needed the animation. It would have changed the movies, but I might have been okay with photographing the characters in various positions. I don’t know. Each time we drifted from the present day to visit a scene in Marwen, I cringed. There’s only so much I could take of “Hogie” (aka Mark) participating in this tiny city and its surrounding areas while being flocked by the gorgeous dolls who seem overly interested in the only non-Nazi man in Hogie. Again, I don’t discredit that this is the story he used to cope with. I understand that he wanted to feel close to women. I understand that he was scared of men and that he was angry with them. There is nothing wrong with what Mark did to cope with his grief. It just did not make for an engaging movie, and there was no need to spend as much time in Marwen as we did.

Mark’s life outside of his imaginary scenes in Marwen was what I was interested in, even if that, too, could have been more interesting. He has a core group of close acquaintances who are all cognizant of the brutal beating that destroyed his life as he knew it. There is Roberta (Merrit Wever – Birdman, Michael Clayton), the woman who works at the local hobby shop in his hometown, Carlala (Eliza Gonzalez – Baby Driver, Jem, and the Holograms), and his new neighbor Nicol (Leslie Mann – This is 40, Knocked Up) whose kindness, sincerity, beauty, and interest in his story quickly cause Mark to fall in love. The relationship between Mark and Nicol is the most interesting story in the entire movie. Mann plays Nicole with the subtleness that would endear the interest of any single lonely man. This relationship also shows the suffering and disconnect with the world of Mark.

The arching story has to do with Mark making it to a court date to read a prepared statement at the sentencing of his five assailants. It is Mark’s testimony that could make their sentences more severe. But he’s dreading and avoiding it at all costs. So, he uses his town and his real-life friends to help him gather the courage to attend the sentencing. Yes, somehow, it took 116 minutes to tell the story of how a man needs to overcome his PTSD to participate in a court sentencing. It’s just not a movie. I admire what Mark Hogancamp did to help restore his life to something worth living. I believe you must do whatever you must to see another day. Yes, for some, it might be weird. But Mark might think that your coping mechanisms are odd. I also thought Carell did an excellent job of portraying Mark in every way. And Mann stole the show as Nicol. This story didn’t need its portrayal as a drama. Also, I wouldn’t say I liked the animation scenes, which accounted for about half of the movie.

Plot 6/10
Character Development 7.5/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 6/10
Directing  7/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 6/10
Hook and Reel 7/10
Universal Relevance 3/10
68.5%

D+

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