Todd Solondz and I met on a sunny, Monday afternoon at Dean & DeLuca's in the Village. I can't help but think that the choice of venue was clearly that of the PR people, and not Mr. Solondz, because his style couldn't possibly be more at odds with the spiffy, designer-food surroundings. Not only did Mr. Solondz decline food and drink of any kind, but he also declined taking off any of the several layers of outer clothing he was wearing. Now it's true, the weather had taken a slightly chilly turn, but not that chilly... in any case, when you conjure up a stereotypical image of a movie director, Mr. Solondz is not what you get. Although it would be grossly over-stating the case to say he is a 36-year-old male version of his 11-year-old little girl protagonist Dawn, I was struck by a less-than-glamorous look. Upon reflection, it seemed perfectly fitting for the writer and director of the brilliant new film Welcome to the Dollhouse, a smash at Sundance and recently released commercially. Appearances aside, and much more to the point, when Mr. Solondz opened his mouth to speak, what came out was astoundingly articulate, intelligent, wise, warm, self-deprecatory, funny, and even a bit wistful. In short, he was an absolute delight. Here's what he had to say about his life and his work. UD: First of all, congratulations. I think Welcome to the Dollhouse is really terrific. TS: Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. UD: I expected something fairly unsentimental, but I was surprised by the out-and-out brutality of certain moments. Were you deliberately after that degree of emotional brutality? TS: As I see it, it is a comedy, a sad comedy, sometimes a harsh, even brutal comedy. But it is a comedy nonetheless.... But I think this brutality, this cruelty -- there's something about this particular time of life, this farewell to childhood, the onset of adolescence, that brings into relief this quality. And contending with these forces of cruelty I think is part of the process of growing up.... But if it were just cruelty, it wouldn't interest me so much as the fact that there's a struggle to transcend it. 1 of 5

The review of Welcome to the Dollhouse


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