Welcome to Marwen **** (2018, Steve Carell, Leslie Mann, Merritt Wever, Falk Hentschel, Matt O’Leary) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Robert Zemeckis’s Welcome to Marwen follows the story of Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell) who has been smashed up by five men and left for dead in a hate crime. They called him ‘queer’ for dressing up in women’s clothes. He was drunk, but remembers telling them all he actually liked was high heels, and that ‘Stand by Your Man’ was playing on the bar’s juke box.

Now that’s about all he remembers, as a result of the brain damage his attackers caused. However, Hogancamp builds a World War Two model village called Marwen in his yard to help in his recovery. He turns the thugs into Nazis, and the women of his small town into characters in Marwen, the women of Marwen. The women include his nice new neighbour across the street, the alluring Nicol (Leslie Mann), and Roberta (Merritt Wever), the brisk, helpful woman from the local model shop who truly loves him.

Mark is just about OK when immersed in his task of creating his model characters and village buildings, and then photographing them as art exhibits. He has an exhibition of his photographs upcoming. But he can’t let any of the women he likes get near to him, fearing further loss, and he gets really troubled when his lawyer asks him to appear in court against the five men who attacked him, fearing confronting his demons.

Welcome to Marwen is quite an exquisite little movie, beautifully realised, and very nicely done indeed. Its message of tolerance and good spirit is impeccable. With a hero who likes wearing stilettos and making dolls, it could never have been a hit movie, I guess. But in a better world, it would be. Steve Carell is brilliant, even just slightly better perhaps than he is in Beautiful Boy. In an appealing, expertly judged low-key performance, he is subtle and sympathetic, without playing on sympathy, without plucking on the heartstrings. Mann and Wever are very, very good indeed. It is easy to see why Hogancamp is quietly entranced by them.

The CGI transforming Mark Hogancamp into his World War Two hero alter ego Cap’n Hogie is dazzlingly brilliant. Zemeckis handles his film with great good taste, sympathy and warmth. His screenplay written with Caroline Thompson is excellent. I liked Alan Silvestri’s score and admired C Kim Miles’s cinematography and Stefan Dechant’s production design. The film has a very old-fashioned, down-home American feel. It feels like a cousin of Pleasantville. It sits oddly in modern cinema, rather uncomfortably. It takes its times, needs a little audience patience and participation.

By the way, Hogancamp likes high heels because they get him near women by having the ‘essence’ of woman. Mainstream movies about shoe fetishes are very rare, and this one is destined to be an instant classic of the genre. Seriously though, the film speaks out against hate crime and is an urgent plea for tolerance, and does it as a form of art that reflects the art that keeps people like the real Hogancamp alive and ticking. Boy, do we need this now.

© Derek Winnert Movie Review

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