WELCOME TO ME (Shira Piven). Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
An unstable California woman (Kristen Wiig) wins $86 million in a state lottery and decides to spend it on producing a talk show – starring her, with no other guests.
Eliot Laurence’s script feels seriously underdeveloped, but Welcome To Me is buoyed for much of its length by a terrific central performance. Wiig’s commitment to the blank-eyed, mercurial Alice – who oscillates between crying jags and delusional entitlement – keeps the picture going as it wobbles through an illogical plot and questionable character development.
Jennifer Jason Leigh’s and Joan Cusack’s characters fill what is essentially one role in the story, to the point that when one of them leaves you barely notice. And James Marsden and Wes Bentley are sadly one-dimensional as brothers who run the TV station Alice more or less takes over.
Shira Piven’s directorial approach is so flat that it takes the movie far too long to settle on a tone, which may confuse audiences even further.
But if you go for Wiig, you’ll get your money’s worth.
