How do you cope with incredible trauma? Do you vanish into a world of your own making, living out fantasies where you get to be a hero? That's the subject of Robert Zemeckis' Welcome To Marwen, which stars Steve Carell and has a first trailer online.
The new film, written by Zemeckis and Caroline Thompson, draws from both Jeff Malmberg's 2010 documentary Marwencol and the 2015 book Welcome To Marwencol, which chart the recovery of Mark Hogancamp, who suffered severe brain trauma when he was beaten by five teenagers and ended up in a coma for nine days.
When he emerged, he had no memory of his life, his friends and his family. As a form of therapy, he began building a 1/6 scale model of a World War II-era Belgian village named Marwencol in his backyard, replete with figures made in the image of him, his friends, and, shockingly to some, his attackers. While the process mended his mind to a certain extent, it also let him escape into a fantasy world in which he created various scenarios with the dolls.
With Carell playing Mark and a slight name change for the village, the film also features Eiza González, Diane Kruger, Leslie Mann, Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever and Janelle Monáe. The subject matter has clearly allowed Zemeckis to dive back into performance capture and other effects tech to bring Mark's real and imagined worlds to life. Welcome To Marwen will be released in the US on 21 November and is listed for an 11th January 2019 slot in the UK.
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