Can money really buy happiness? Would people tune in to watch a talk-show hosted by a socially awkward nobody? Is there anything to gained from making a cake out of hamburger? These are some of the weighty questions tackled in the upcoming comedy Welcome To Me.Starring Kristen Wiig as a troubled woman who uses her lottery winnings to start her own talk show, Welcome To Me subverts the notion that television audiences crave the carefully manicured formula of talk show entertainment while reinforcing the notion that movie audiences crave the hilarity of crippling emotional disorders.
Directed by Shira Piven, Welcome To Me opened to mixed reviews at last year’s TIFF; Alchemy plans to distribute the film later this year. Slashfilm has posted a trailer and this official synopsis:
“Alice Klieg (Kristen Wiig) suffers from borderline personality disorder, and though she manages it — and the accompanying medications and therapeutic care — fairly well, past tumult has left a broken marriage and strained familial relationships in its wake. She finds grounding in her daily routine, which includes memorizing every episode of Oprah and carefully monitoring her wardrobe and protein-laden diet. One can’t help but get the sense that Alice is straining to embrace bigger things, and when her numbers come up in the state lottery, suddenly she gets focused… on eighty million dollars’ worth of possibilities.
In quick succession, Alice buys a stretch of hours at a local television company, eschews her medication and therapy, moves into a casino, and creates her own talk show about — what else? — herself. As her show gains an audience (despite some off-the-wall cooking and medical demonstrations), Alice realizes that viewers identify with her re-enactments of past hurts and social slights. What she doesn’t recognize is that her own hunger for fame may just reflect a deeper need to be heard.”