Now I get my chance to discuss what I already consider one of the most underrated movies ever. I got stoked to hear about Welcome To Marwen. I’d loved the little documentary Marwencol I’d watched years earlier (see previous entry) and was floored that talents like Robert Zemeckis and Steve Carell would give this man’s story a glamorous Hollywood treatment.
I wound up watching it when I did because I was on a date and she chose Welcome to Marwen out of the options I’d given. Then she told me the approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes was only 26%, which I couldn’t believe. Although that didn’t change her selection, I had to look it up to confirm and then I saw that the film was also set to cost Universal $60 million due to poor box office performance.
Why? Why people?
You could argue that my expectations were lowered after what I’d just found out but I was still super excited about this film. It did not disappoint at all!
I’ll begin with my biggest piece of praise: Steve Carell delivers one of the best performances I have ever seen. I don’t just mean by him; I mean in general. The fragility he displays portraying a man coping with severe PTSD, who even before the trauma never quite fit into society due to his quirks, and who struggles mightily to piece a life together in the present day, breaks your heart. Meanwhile, the sense of wonder we see when he does immerse himself in the community of his figures is beautiful. He comes across like a child who has been abused but is able to stop crying because of some lovely toys provided to soothe him. Moreover, in the “Marwen” (what the fictional community is called for most of the film) sequences, when he actually plays the star of his own fantasies, he has to flip a switch and bring out his best Gary Cooper-esque World War II hero. He does so captivatingly! It’s a real shame that due to the film’s critical and commercial disappointment Carell will get absolutely no awards recognition for this bravura work. Hopefully his past Oscar nomination (for Foxcatcher) will offer consolation.
I alluded to the sequences in Marwen. While this movie does an amazing job showing Mark Hogancamp trying to piece his life together, find love, get closure, and more forward, what really adds another layer to it is the plethora of scenes actually set in Marwen. They provide a story within a story where Mark plays the brave hero “Hogie” and other people he knows portray characters in this town that seems vaguely located in Europe during the second world war. What happens between them illustrates what’s happening in Mark’s mind at the time while working as a story in its own right, and the visuals are amazing. The characters in Marwen are played by the same actors as their real life counterparts yet the CGI does a FANTASTIC job making it so that they look real, but not quite. They honestly seem like action figures created to look like the actual people with loving attention to detail and then brought to life. The sets for the scenes in Marwen also take your breath away; it seems like such a charming community simultaneously capturing the horrors of a war-torn area and the innocence of children’s toys. Bringing all this together is Robert Zemeckis and I can’t think of anyone better for the job than the visionary who gave us Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Forrest Gump.
Of course style means nothing without substance and my favorite thing about this film is how it shows that when someone has lost everything, you can’t necessarily expect things to become completely right again. Ultimately you need to learn to appreciate the small things, and celebrate them. Mark Hogancamp, after being left for dead and consequently losing his livelihood, basically took to playing with toys as a coping mechanism. Yet his imagination allowed him to create art via what he was doing-such amazing art that he now tours the country getting to showcase it. Now there have been TWO fantastic films made about him. What would some people do to even have one? This might not be the life Mark would have wanted prior to his assault but it seems like a blessed one nonetheless.
Final note: One of my favorite websites is tvtropes.org and an interesting entry is “Insult Backfire”. An eye-opening real life example is that when Caitlyn Jenner was lauded as a hero after coming out as transgender a man named Terry Coffey circulated a meme of two soldiers in action saying that was what a hero actually looked like. I’ve certainly seen many conservatives try and create that false dichotomy. Coffey found out, however, that the picture wasn’t of actual soldiers but figures Mark Hogancamp used for art therapy after being savagely beaten for wearing women’s shoes. That made the previously transphobic Coffey a champion of LGBT rights, as he couldn’t believe it was just coincidence that he had chosen that specific picture out of all the ones he saw on Google Images. He believed fate was trying to tell him something.
I’ve heard the phrase “Into each life some rain must fall”. Mark Hogancamp faced a thunderstorm so violent he can’t even remember anything beforehand. Yet what’s happened since then makes me feel fate smiles on this man.
Well, maybe not that much because the feature film about him has flopped. It shouldn’t have though! Watch it everyone, please!
Final Verdict: Ignore everyone else and watch this!
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