The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2012

Dollhouse | Berlin Film Festival 2012

Dollhouse | Berlin Film Festival 2012
15 February 2012
Ruta Buciunaite
Avatar
Ruta Buciunaite
15 February 2012

This year, acclaimed Irish scriptwriter Kirsten Sheridan (Disco Pigs, August Rush) presents feature drama Dollhouse. The film revolves around a night of adventure for a group of teenagers – Denise, Darren, Eanna, Shane and Jeannie. Five friends break into an empty house in a rich neighbourhood and trash everything. They consume alcohol and drugs, deride the posh lifestyle and immerse themselves in general debauchery and teenage rascality.

The teenagers from Kirsten Sheridan’s feature drama Dollhouse

As it later turns out – the house belongs to Jeannie, who is the most silent and mysterious of the gang. She is different from the rest of the kids, clearly better educated and with an upper class background – why she chooses to spend her time with this lot, and even allow them to destroy her home, is something we are left to ponder. When Jeannie’s ex-boyfriend Robbie unexpectedly turns up at the door, even more questions arise. He too does not understand a thing – Jeannie mysteriously disappeared a year ago, now suddenly back in the neighbourhood with a group of lower middle class delinquents who cannot speak a sentence without swearing.

Do not expect any explanations – that is the main thing Dollhouse lacks. The whole narrative is built on a bunch of MacGuffins and set up in a way that promises some sort of delayed pay off – a revelation of a secret that Jeannie has been hiding. This revelation (which I will not spoil) is as bizarre as it is disappointing, especially after hearing a good half an hour of “Come on, Jeannie, tell us your story!” that does not build up in any particularly exciting way. Instead, it feels like the whole sequence of events is unnaturally staged, and the deliberate deprivation of background and context to the story of these five kids is so pronounced, that it almost seems it is there only to hide the fact that there is no context worked through at all. In the case of Dollhouse, it is not a matter of leaving some questions unanswered to give viewers the freedom of interpretation – it is more like stubbornly refusing to provide anything interpretable at all.

However, Dollhouse is not really about telling us anyone’s story. It is an observation of dynamics and power relations within the group of people each vulnerable in their own way, and about the mood and atmosphere of here and now, which keeps shifting with every stupid joke they make or secret and confused glance they throw each other’s way. The performances are therefore what we are left to focus on, but then again, they are constructed using fast-paced music video style editing to disguise the fact that the actors did not really have any dialogues to perform. It remains a mystery to me what sort of clues they built their characters on at all, given that the characters have depth and certain authenticity (especially Denise, played by Kate Brennan).

Kirsten Sheridan’s Dollhouse leaves us with a handful of impressions, reminiscent in their storytelling style of the early works of Lynne Ramsay. If we keep digging for meaning, we will probably find it. However, the film did not convince me of being worthy of such effort.

Verdict: •••

Ruta Buciunaite

Related Items

More in Berlinale

A Little Love Package

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Sonne

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Gangubai Kathiawadi

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

“I was always trying to find this equilibrium between improvising and following the script”: Carla Simón on Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love: An interview with Nicolette Krebitz

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Berlinale 2022: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Concerned Citizen

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Rimini: An interview with director Ulrich Seidl

Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • Banter Jar at Lion & Unicorn Theatre: “An authentic and timely one-woman show”
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • The Road Dance
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Innocents
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Top Gun: Maverick
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Harka
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Rodeo
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Alma Viva
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • “When you’re presented with different dilemmas in life, you respond accordingly”: Debbie Kurup on The Cher Show
    Theatre
  • Top Gun: Maverick
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Rodeo
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Alma Viva
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • 2:22 A Ghost Story at Criterion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The House of Shades at Almeida Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Kid-Thing and interview with director David Zellner | Berlin Film Festival 2012
Iron Sky | Berlin Film Festival 2012