"Welcome to the Dollhouse is great. Even though it’s about a girl in middle school, to me, that feels like the most honest reflection of what being a kid around that age feels like. It’s just so bad. It’s like that movie captures the very worst moments of being that age so perfectly. Everything is unfair, everyone hates you, and the world is totally against you. It’s such a good coming-of-age movie."

"We always recommend it to our students. We both teach high school classes a lot, and most of them aren’t aware of this movie, even though it’s the most honest and accurate depiction of that age. I guess they’re early high school or middle school, they’re about fourteen or fifteen. There’s almost a documentary feel to it. At the time, the [kids] weren’t professional actors, though a lot of them have gone on to acting. [Director] Peter Sollett did such a beautiful job. It’s so loose and warm and real and naturalistic and funny and unexpected. So much of it wasn’t rehearsed, and they let a lot of that process unfold while they made the movie. The kids sort of do their own dialogue. But I remember seeing it and thinking, “I’ve never seen it done that well before.” Usually I think teenagers are overwritten, written by much older people. Sort of reinventing."

"I was born in '81 so I think it was around '89, '90 when that came out. I grew up listening to Boyz II Men at their peak and “End of the Road” was my favourite song when I was about 10 or 11. “It was the harmonies, the vocal abilities, but it was also the go-to song that kids at my school would ask me to sing. Because I could hold a note, but also because I prided myself on trying to learn the ad-libs that other people couldn't quite hit. “That was really why it really resonated with me, because it brings back memories of middle school. The vocal ability of Wanya in particular in that group was so outstanding to me. I learned so much from that one song."