In my quest to watch all the Kristen Wiig movies in my queue, I watched Welcome to Me. Welcome to Me is about a mentally disabled woman who wins the lottery soon after she stops taking her meds then spends most of her winnings to create a tv show about herself.
At times, I found Welcome to Me hard to watch like a Saturday Night Live Skit that goes on long after it is no longer funny, but I didn’t stop watching. On one hand, she is in control and clearly articulates what she wants, but on the other hand, it does not mean that those who humor her are absolved from being morally dubious or downright dangerous. Also I can’t imagine that if you were her friend for a long time that you would really be shocked that she can be epically insensitive. Welcome to Me tries to wedge in commentary about how everyone is willing to be entertained by anything and the over intellectualization/rationalization of crap entertainment, but it falls flat and should have been left unsaid.
Wiig’s character in Welcome to Me is a more exaggerated, less functional, more mentally disabled version of her earlier characters who are shamelessly desperate, reckless and sexual. In Welcome to Me, her character is incapable of seeming normal and has a wooden affect while trying to mimic joy and enthusiasm. At least Wiig doesn’t attempt suicide in Welcome to Me. I was beginning to think that was a Wiig staple. I’m going to leave it to people with more knowledge of mental disabilities whether or not Welcome to Me misses the mark in creating a realistic character in a fantastic situation.
Your enjoyment of Welcome to Me is directly related to how much you like Wiig and the rest of the cast in order of my adoration of their performance: Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Loretta Devine, James Marsden and Linda Cardellini. I adore Alan Tudyk, but he isn’t given much to do. Tudyk got more screen time than Leigh, but Leigh really played the hell out of her two minutes. Because I wanted Welcome to Me to be more comedy than watching someone spectacularly hit rock bottom and make a series of bad life choices, I stayed for all the contrasting, realistic reactions to Wiig’s character more than watching Wiig’s character go on a narcissistically therapeutic quest to finally be heard, feel special and vent her frustrations.
If you like the cast, give Welcome to Me a chance, but don’t put it high in your queue.