Robert Zemeckis directs (and believe me, he won’t let you forget it) Welcome to Marwen, a narrative adaptation of the amazing 2010 documentary Marwencol. In this ‘heightened reality’ version, Steve Carell plays Mark Hogancamp, an artist who was beaten nearly to death in a hate crime. Now, years later, he is starting to recover using an elaborate fantasy town he has built next to his house called Marwen: a WWII besieged Belgian village complete with dolls based on himself and people in his life who act out elaborate stories that he takes pictures of. So art therapy healing, a decent cast of folks including Leslie Mann and Merritt Weaver, impressive use of mocap animation of the actor’s faces onto the dolls…what exactly is wrong here? It’s not so easy to put the finger on but Chris, Frank, Marco, and Alan do their best.

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