“Let’s go for it.”

From Welcome to Marwen.

After he is almost beaten to death Mark Hogencamp (Steve Carell), he was left in a state of brokenness; an accomplished and talented artist before the attack, he now finds himself struggling to write his own name and his only way to express himself and the traumatic attack is to use dolls, action figures, model cars, and a miniature village to create a place that he calls Marwen.  In Marwen, Mark can photograph/work through the horrors of his past with the help of several dolls based on people in his life: his new neighbor Nicol (Leslie Mann), coworker (Eiza Gonsález), hobby shop owner (Merritt Wever), home health aide (Gwendoline Christie), favorite actress (Leslie Zemeckis), and physical therapist (Janelle Monae).  The enemies of Marwen are five Nazi soldiers, a German officer named Kurt (Neil Jackson), and the mysterious witch Deja (Diane Kruger) that cripples Mark.  Now several years after the attack, the opening of Mark’s art show and the sentencing hearing are quickly approaching, both events which the reclusive Mark is reluctant to attend.  As Mark struggles to cope with having to see the men who nearly murdered him because he mentioned that he sometimes liked to wear women’s shoes, he must also find away to defeat Deja and the Nazis in Marwen if he is to have any chance of survival in the real world.

While the trailers portrayed a captivating story of human perseverance after terrible trauma, the actual movie itself is different from expectation.  Based on a true story, the movie follows Hogencamp both as a survivor and an artist, with reality and fiction constantly blending the two.  The animation is brilliant, the action is intense (if not surprisingly violent), and the acting is genuine.  While Welcome to Marwen is an interesting story that does a brilliant job of displaying Hogancamp’s artistic expression and perseverance, the movie’s unexpected foundation seems to hold the movie back from making an overall point.

| Rated: PG-13 | Running Time: 114 minutes |Genre: biography/fantasy/action |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 5 of 10|Nudity: 3 of 10|Sexuality: 0 of 10|Gore: 3 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|