There are framed wedding photos on the wall, open albums of holiday memories on the table. This is a household of gestures rehearsed for decades. The filmmaker meets life as lived in her grandparents’ Luxembourg home. She tries on her grandfather’s coat and her grandmother’s rings. Out of boredom? Or is it an appropriation of history? Time seems to stand still and yet moves inexorably forward. He takes a nap in a sleeping mask that has open eyes printed on it, she sits at the kitchen table and talks about the onset of her dementia. She enjoys a cigarette by the window to the fullest, letting her granddaughter paint her nails pink. Perhaps to look good on camera, while the grandfather swings his hips to the music from the radio. The couple wrest touching moments from the sense of transience, while a pas de deux tells of love and attachment.

Step into 9-year-old Juniper’s world as she navigates complicated memories and guilt related to Magnolia, a woman who comes to work for the family. In misleadingly delicate animation and tone, “The Dollhouse” positions home as the workshop where unjust power dynamics are formed. The story unfolds in all directions, at times offering specific interactions.