[3] The story follows the unpopular middle schooler Dawn as she goes to extreme lengths trying to earn the respect of her vicious fellow students and her uninterested family.

Her older brother Mark is a nerdy high school student who plays clarinet in a garage band and shuns girls in order to prepare for college.

Later, Dawn gets in trouble again after accidentally hitting another teacher in the eye with a spitball in self-defense when Brandon and his friends bully her during an assembly.

At dinner that evening, when she refuses to tear down her clubhouse to make room for her parents' 20th anniversary party, Marj tells Mark and Missy to destroy it anyway, and gives them Dawn's share of dessert.

After a night of searching, she phones home and Mark tells her that Missy was found alive and unharmed by police after being abducted by a pedophilic neighbor.

On a bus ride to Walt Disney World for a concert tour, Dawn sits among her fellow choir members and unenthusiastically joins them in singing the school anthem.

[7][8] It garnered critical praise for its view of a pre-teen outcast, and won the Grand Jury Prize for best dramatic feature at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.

The website's critical consensus reads, "An outstanding sophomore feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse sees writer-director Todd Solondz mining suburban teen angst for black, biting comedy.

"[11] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".