EVERYDAY AGONIES OF A PRETEEN'S LIFE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Twice as cruel as that movie ``Kids'' and 10 times more fun, ``Welcome to the Dollhouse'' is an exquisitely sour slice of suburban torture. The deserving winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Best Picture award, Todd Solondz's unforgiving tour of adolescent hell reimagines all the cliches of the coming-of-age movie without ever succumbing to the genre's sentimental excesses. In this picture, growing up is war, and it's going to last at least as long as Vietnam.

Seventh-grader Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo), whose pinched, overbitten face bears an alarming resemblance to Wallace Shawn's, is despised by practically all of her classmates at a New Jersey middle school. Dubbed ``Wiener Dog,'' she is teased mercilessly by the cute girls, beaten up by the tough girls and threatened with rape by the rough boys. Adults don't treat the awkward preteen any better. As punishment for some infraction she didn't cause, a huffy teacher orders Dawn to write an essay on dignity - as if that could help.

Home provides no shelter. Dawn's testy parents (Angela Pietropinto and Bill Buell) actively prefer her ballerina kid sister, Missy (Daria Kalinina). Dawn even gets picked on by her arguably geekier older brother, Mark (Matthew Faber), who plays clarinet in a garage band that throttles ``Satisfaction.''

The astonishing thing about Matarazzo's performance isn't just the 11-year-old's completely convincing command of wrenching emotions; it's the way she tries to control them. Perfectly capturing the unpopular kid's hopeless struggle to simulate cool, the young actress achieves an eccentric inelegance that's as poignant as it is hilarious.

Plus, she's mean. Unlike most young movie underdogs, Dawn would rather victimize the few she can than take vengeance on her own tormentors (for the most part, she just wants that majority's acceptance). Missy comes in for particularly vile treatment. This leads to the film's most disturbing incident, which is both appalling and utterly understandable from Dawn's point of view.

Also excellent is Eric Mabius as the semi-criminal, aspiring Jim Morrison who's oblivious to Dawn's massive crush. And then there's Brendan Sexton Jr., who finds just the right strain of sensitivity - which is, enough to register without getting sloppy - in Dawn's most aggressively threatening schoolmate.

Acutely observed throughout, ``Welcome to the Dollhouse'' has caused more than a few adults I know to gravely nod their heads and exclaim, ``That's exactly how it was.'' Hardly, for most of us, anyway. But Solondz is so adept at exaggerating the particulars of junior high trauma, the movie inevitably tickles just about anyone's amplified memory of being young, yearning and misunderstood.

THE FACTS The film: ``Welcome to the Dollhouse'' (R; language, children in jeopardy, drug use).

The stars: Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton Jr., Daria Kalinina, Matthew Faber, Eric Mabius, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Todd Solondz. Produced by Solondz and Ted Skillman. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Esquire, Pasadena; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Monica, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Four stars

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo:Brendan Sexton Jr. torments Heather Matarazzo - while displaying unexpected sensitivity - in ``Welcome to the Dollhouse.''