Welcome to Marwen

by Philip Price

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Steve Carell, Eliza Gonzalez & Merritt Wever 
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour & 56 minutes

If this were 1997 Tom Hanks would have played Mark Hogancamp and I don't know that “Welcome to Marwen” would have been any better for it. 

As someone who grew up hearing director Robert Zemeckis' work almost unanimously praised through the likes of the ‘Back to the Future’ films and “Forrest Gump,” as well as “Cast Away” being my first theatrical Zemeckis experience it seemed as if the man could do nothing wrong and was forever interesting due to his own interests in always trying to push the envelope in some way. The director continued to do this as I came of age and developed more of a taste for more varied types of cinema, but did so in the sense that it would become the era when Zemeckis became enamored with motion capture animation. Between “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf” and “A Christmas Carol” (all of which I saw and each of which I don't largely remember) it seemed Zemeckis was pigeon-holing himself into a trend he'd never be able to give up and then, in 2012, the filmmaker seemed to re-calibrate his career with the Denzel Washington-starrer, “Flight,” that made many people sit up and take note of what Zemeckis was up to again. It was Zemeckis' next film though, “The Walk,” that would really set the stage for ‘Marwen.’ 

Like “The Walk,” “Welcome to Marwen” is a feature adaptation of a story previously told in a documentary that didn't necessarily need a feature adaptation to improve upon the story, but that Zemeckis had clear ideas about how to interpret and convey in bigger and more interesting ways. Given the subject matter with “The Walk” it was the idea to shoot on large format cameras and in immersive 3D (IMAX VR has a virtual reality experience of this movie, where the guest actually tightropes across the twin towers) while with ‘Marwen’ the hook is to not only take the audience through the trials and tribulations of Hogancamp's story, but to flesh out how he has coped with the tragedies of his life by bringing to life what can only be imagined as what Hogancamp himself is imagining; this done through animated sequences with Barbie and G.I. Joe figures that Hogancamp has utilized to build his own, alternate world and town that is set in Belgium in the middle of WWII. Long story short, Hogancamp was beaten within an inch of his life in 2000 and lost all previous memories as a result thus pushing him to a place where his fictional town he dubbed "Marwencol" became a place for him to escape to and an outlet for him to create from. 

Fascinating, right? It's not difficult to see why a filmmaker like Zemeckis would have a unique take on the material and want to again tell Hogancamp's story, but Zemeckis and co-writer, Caroline Thompson (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”) boil this man's story down from what could have been a sweeping narrative about alter-egos and fulfilling ones fantasies through the image one has of themselves in their mind, about creating your own therapy through creating your own world, or about a man who-after losing his memory and being in a coma-had to learn everything over again-both physically and mentally-to a movie about a boy with some issues who meets the new girl across the street that is kind to him, but would never desire to actually be with his weird ass in real life. At least, that's how it all comes off in Zemeckis' film. There are inspired moments, no doubt, as there are hints of how Hogancamp's dolls and alternate reality begin to make their way into what is actually reality and how it becomes increasingly difficult for him to tell the difference, but these never amount to much if anything. The integration of the two worlds is fairly smooth and the intercutting of the storylines unfolding in the real world and in Marwen help to add some momentum to what is otherwise an unfocused mess of emotions, but this is largely a slog. The intrigue of the film should be in the trying to piece together what happened to Hogancamp (more the little details than the broad strokes), who each of the dolls represent in his actual life, and what those people signify in the grand scheme, but Zemeckis fails to ever capture any kind of cohesive tone as characters come in and out with no explanation and are then never seen again to the extent the film as a whole feels like a patchwork of a handful of different ideas rather than a film with a certain perspective on its subject. Zemeckis has a point of view when it comes to how he wanted to relay the story, but no such point of view when it actually comes to telling the story and that's a real issue. 

To boot, considering we're watching Barbie and G.I. Joe figures flesh out this world this man is enjoying existing within more than he does the real world and the insane violence depicted as well as strange sexual tension that always lingers it's hard to separate the "interesting" from the "weird". Dammit if Steve Carell isn't endearing as always though; the only other man outside of Hanks that is able to pull off a line like, "reach for the sky" in serious fashion while looking like a plastic doll.