WELCOME TO MARWEN
New Model Army
RELEASED OUT NOW! 12a | 116 minutes Director robert Zemeckis Cast steve Carell, leslie Mann, Merritt Wever, diane Kruger
Robert Zemeckis was at the forefront of performance capture technology, way back when The Polar Express was unnerving us all with its creepy-eyed kids. Things have moved on since then, but Welcome To Marwen has weirdness of its own.
Part true story of tragedy and struggle, part model-powered war film, it adapts Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg’s 2010 documentary about Mark Hogancamp, a man beaten into a coma by homophobic thugs. With little memory of his past life and a long road to recovery ahead, he channelled his trauma into building a miniature World War II village in his garden, populated with dolls representing himself as his (primarily female) friends, which he then lovingly photographed.
Steve Carell plays Mark here, a man still struggling with his injuries and obsessed with not just the women of Marwen, his creation, but plastic Nazi soldiers intent on taking them out – who resemble the attackers he can’t bear to face in court. All the while, the likes of new neighbour Nicol (Leslie Mann), hobby shop owner Roberta (Merritt Wever) and nurse Anna (Gwendoline Christie) try to help him and encourage his art. Oh, and the village is threatened by a mysterious witch, Deja Thoris (Diane Kruger).
The tone is often hard to pin down, with the serious themes of a wounded man blending uneasily with hyper-stylised World War II action and bizarrely inappropriate comedy. Zemeckis and co-writer Caroline Thompson (Corpse Bride) find moments of inspiration, and Carell is affecting in places, but the feeling generated here is mostly of a missed effort: a film that was a passion project for its director, but that will generate confusion and occasionally antagonism in audiences. Jim Blakey
Zemeckis caught the documentary while channel surfing in 2010, and immediately pursued the rights to adapt it.