Presented in competition at Cannes 2025’s Immersive Section, The Dollhouse stands as the season’s most quietly staggering experience, fragile, luminous, and heartbreakingly needed.
by Alexandra I. Mas
In the gentle creaking of paper and the softness of a child’s voice, The Dollhouse (La Maison de Poupée) reveals one of the most searing truths of our time: that abuse doesn’t always wear the face of violence, it often hides in plain sight, nestled within the walls of ordinary homes.
Crafted as an animated interactive VR experience, this co-production between Luxembourg and Canada, directed by Charlotte Bruneau and Dominic Desjardins, invites us into the delicate interior world of Juniper, a 9-year-old girl who plays with her dolls to make sense of the adult world around her. In this fragile universe of unfolding paper walls and whispered narration, we are not passive viewers, we are co-dreamers, co-discoverers. Through Juniper’s eyes and hands, we uncover a quiet horror: the mistreatment and emotional sequestration of Magnolia, a domestic worker in the family home.
A World Made of Paper, and the Weight It Carries
What begins as play gradually darkens. We are invited to manipulate a doll, navigate a miniature house, and listen as Juniper’s memories piece themselves back together—not as they were told to her, but as she begins to remember them. The graphics are exquisitely crafted: textured like folded dreams, inspired by object theatre and puppetry. Every crease, every soft color wash adds to the uncanny beauty of the piece.
There is nothing gratuitous here. The horror lies not in spectacle, but in recognition—the way Magnolia is ignored, dismissed, or controlled. The Dollhouse does not shout. It listens. And it urges us to do the same.
Unlike some immersive works that rely heavily on technological sophistication, The Dollhouse is quiet in its rendering, but immense in effect. Interactions are subtle and metaphorical: folding a wall, shifting a doll, gently discovering what was hidden. There are no puzzles to solve, only emotional truths to unearth.
This delicacy is its strength. We are not distracted by mechanics; we are drawn inward, into the rhythms of a child’s understanding. Here, the immersive process brings us closer to the moral core of the story. Each action becomes an invitation to reflect on what power looks like, and how easily it slips into cruelty when cloaked in silence.
A Story That Must Be Told
The Dollhouse is a necessary act of witness. In a world where domestic workers, often women, often migrants, continue to live without protection, the film dares to bring their lives into view through the eyes of a child just beginning to comprehend injustice.
And yet, this is not a story about despair. It is a story about awakening, about a young girl who dares to disobey, to ask for forgiveness, to understand that love is not obedience—and that truth must sometimes be built from the dust of memory.
“What would you do to her, if she were yours?” the experience asks, as you cradle a fragile paper doll in your virtual hands.
The question is both literal and metaphorical, and it lingers long after the headset is removed…
A Favorite Among the Season’s Selection
Among this year’s immersive entries, The Dollhouse stands out not for its scale, but for its soul. It is the experience that stays with you in the quiet moments, that opens a small, necessary wound, and plants something inside it: empathy, perhaps, or courage. It is an experience you carry. In a society where modern-day servitude still lurks behind closed doors, The Dollhouse is a mirror, a question, and a quiet call to act.
Creative Credits
Directed by: Charlotte Bruneau & Dominic Desjardins
Artistic Director: Sophie Dubé
Creative Producer: Rayne Zukerman
Animation: Zeilt / YAAARGames
Composer: Kyan Bayani
Voices: Sarah Vergès (FR), Ellie Todd (EN), Claire Cahen, Rebecca Maiese
Motion Capture: Béatrice René-Décarie, Corinne Hoang
