Al's Omniflick: Welcome to Me

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Welcome to Me

**Spoiler Alert**

Director Shira Piven/Starring: Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Linda Cardellini and Thomas Mann

Shira Piven's Welcome to Me is one of those films that is so self-consciously weird that its weirdness becomes a tiresome contrivance. It goes well out of its way to be strange but at times it can elicit a chuckle when it isn't trying too hard to be bizarre. Director Shira Piven's film makes a reasonably good entrance, only to stumble then drag itself to a whimsical end.

Kristen Wiig plays Alice Klieg, a manic-depressive living in the fictional southern Californian town of Palm Desert. She spends part of her days in therapy, where Dr. Daryl Moffet (Tim Robbins) administers psychiatric guidance and prescriptions. The other part are spent in front of the T.V., idolizing Oprah Winfrey; lip-syncing her on-screen patter and gleaning morsels of Oprah-wisdom dispensed on air.

Among Alice's possessions are small stacks of losing lottery tickets. In an early scene, Alice tunes in to a televised lottery drawing. As the numbers are called, we see that Alice has won the $86 million (actually a lesser amount for a lump sum) jackpot. Ecstatic and dumbfounded, she can barely breath the words "I'm a winner" into the phone to claim the prize. True to her eccentric nature, she makes a hotel casino her second home then gathers her family and friends for a celebratory meal.

Enthralled with Oprah and her inspirational words, Alice and her friend Gina (Linda Cardellini), visit a live taping of an infomercial at a local T.V. station. During the show, when the host Gabe Ruskin (Wes Bentley) asks for a volunteer to demonstrate a product's effectiveness, Alice is only too eager to walk on stage. The show producer and staff in the booth express dismay when the erratic Alice, commandeers the show with her off-the-wall volatility.

Afterwards, the two brothers who control the station's content; Gabe and Rich Ruskin (James Marsden) invite Alice into their conference room to meet with the production staff. In the course of discussion, Alice lets it be known she wants her own show and when asked what it would be about, she says, "me." Of course the staff, including producer Dawn Hurley (Joan Cusack) and Deb Moseley (Jennifer Jason Leigh) voice their objections, only to be silenced by Alice's $15 million dollar check, which covers the projected production cost of her show.

I don't know about other film-goers, but I always find it excruciating to watch a film about a lottery winner who is hell-bent on squandering his/her fortune on frivolous nonsense. At this point in the film, the total and imminent exhaustion of the fortune seems like a fait accompli.

The show, with its zeitgeist-appropriate title Welcome to Me is naturally a bizarre spectacle that could have been the brainchild of David Lynch and Luis Bunuel.

The show begins with Alice arriving on a swan followed by re-enactments of slights suffered by Alice during her life, which share air-time with cooking segments featuring outlandish and unpalatable culinary creations, like a frosting-topped meatloaf. The staff, looking on in the booth, watch incredulously. The show manages to draw viewers and even a few admirers.

Gabe begins to have qualms about his brother's willingness to exploit Alice. Before long, Gabe and Alice begin a romance, which catches a snag during one of her rage-filled, flights of mental instability. Her erratic behavior and emotional vulnerability begin to impair her judgement. Alice has a fling with a fawning fan named Rainer Ybarra (Thomas Mann) which doesn't escape Gabe's notice.

As the show continues on its weird course and Alice's un-medicated self holds the production staff captive, her self-involved antics begin to wear on her loved ones, particularly her best friend Gina.

I suppose Piven's film is commentary on the narcissism gripping the country and it makes a convincing case of its pandemic reach. Approaching the topic with absurdist humor is a good way to go but the film asphyxiates in its weirdness. Don't get me wrong; I like weird but when it's a film's selling point rather than an element of its storytelling, it becomes a tiresome affectation, as it is here. As the story progresses, Alice's condition becomes less funny and more tedious.

A film like Welcome to Me could only end happily, which it does. Alice comes to acknowledge her ego-centrism and makes an extraordinarily selfless gesture to her best friend Gina.

The supporting cast was quite terrific when given their time though most are consigned to straight-men roles. When you have actors like Robbins and Cusack; who wield considerable comedic ability, exiled to the margins, it becomes a liability.

As previously stated, the film generates a modicum of laughs but I mostly found the movie to be a one-note joke. If manic-depressive narcissists are your company of choice, then Piven's film is for you. I suppose there is a better comedy out there dealing with this small cross-section of American society but that's another film. At least this one makes a case for not skipping one's meds.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.