Welcome to Me
Description
Living in Palm Desert in an apartment where the television has been on for 11 years straight, Alice Klieg (Kristen Wiig) is ready for her moment. In fact, as someone who suffers from borderline personality disorder and believes the world revolves around her and her needs, she’s been rehearsing for it all her life. So when she wins an $86 million lottery prize, Alice finagles her way into a cable network chief’s office and offers to write a check if she can have her own show. “And I want to come in on a swan boat,” she demands. From this delightfully off-kilter premise, Shira Piven’s new film unfurls the story of a woman whose unpredictable and problematic behavior is offset by her purchasing power. When one of her outrageous show requests leads to a confrontation with some higher-ups, Alice is forced to reckon with her illness, some mistakes in her past and just what her new wealth should be used for. With an amazing and game cast, including James Marsden, Joan Cusack, Wes Bentley and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and a fearless and funny star turn by Wiig, Welcome to Me is the ideal dark comedy for these narcissism-fueled times. —Rod Armstrong
Trailer
Biographies
Shira Piven began her career in theater, founding the Water Theatre Company in New York and directing over 20 stage productions, many of them original adaptations. She has made several highly lauded short films and directed several episodes of the political web series Tastes Like Home. Her first feature Fully Loaded (2011) won the Audience Award for Favorite Feature at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Regarding Welcome to Me and how she went about telling the story of Alice Klieg, Piven said, “My approach to comedy is always really through truth, through the humanity of the characters. This script especially, I felt like the comedy was just going to come through just playing the moments as honestly as possible.”