If you're in the mood for a quiet, funny, moody and quirky 90 minutes, immerse yourself in WELCOME TO ME.
Kristen Wiig is more in "Skeleton Twins" than "Bridesmaids" mode with her powerful portrayal of Alice Klieg. Alice has deep psychological issues and has gone off her meds, much to the dismay of her concerned physician, Dr Moffet (Tim Robbins).
Alice's life consists of a very structured day of waking up just past noon, watching a full library of inspirational Oprah episodes that she has viewed so repeatedly that she has memorized O's words and precise emotional delivery.
She then goes out and buys a magazine and a lottery ticket, which she carefully catalogs and reviews each day.
When one of those tickets hits and Alice finds herself with $86 million, she decides to be the star of her own talk show on a Palm Springs station in which she talks only about herself.
Wiig's supporting cast is excellent. Wes Bentley is local As Seen On TV pitchman Gabe, James Marsden (Xmen, Hairspray) is his TV station owning brother Rich and the great Joan Cusack is TV director Dawn, saddled with bringing a very high budget show with no structure on air.
Throw in Jennifer Jason Leigh as a frustrated show producer, Alan Tudyk as Alice's gay ex-husband and you've got a lot of great screen time for solid actors.
Wiig's Alice is funny in a bittersweet way. Surrounding herself with every special effect, music montage and swan motif her millions can buy, her show still consists of five minute sequences of her eating a meat loaf cake and reenacting scenes from her life in which she felt slighted.
When her audience begins to grow, you can feel the film straining toward a mood similar to the classic Peter Sellers film "Being There" where everyone assumed that his character Chance was speaking wisdom, when really he was just a simple man saying what he thought without any social filter.
With mental health as Alice's true enemy, the film has many moods and asks a lot of you to go along with the roller coaster of her emotions, which can be exhausting. I don't know that it's ultimately rewarding, but Welcome to Me is terrifically played by its cast and has a voice of its own on love, relationships, money and dreams.
It's a drama with some funny moments and some very adult, difficult ones as well. It's a brave performance from Wiig, who has no vanity in bringing Alice to life. It's not for everyone, but it certainly had my attention from beginning to end.
We'll welcome it with a B-.
Comments