Willkommen bei Alice

Unconventional but warm exploration of a broken person who uses her own television program as public therapy; well written & directed, it deftly walks the line between playing mental illness for laughs & treating it with respect.

#nitrosMovieChallenge.

Welcome to Me is a distinctly odd movie about a woman with a boderline personality disorder diagnosis and millions of dollars in lottery winnings who decides to have a vanity TV show all about her. It's an interesting idea, and it kept my attention, but I feel it wasn't quite the movie it might have been.

First off I'd like to talk about borderlines, because I've known a couple. Googling around I've found a few articles describing this movie as either a good or bad portrayal of BPD. Since BPD simply means you exhibit a large number of traits from a list (impulsivity, self-harm, etc.), Alice is acceptable as a borderline. And since being borderline can exist with other conditions, like depression or narcissism, you can't really complain about less typical borderline behavior.

That being said, Alice doesn't seem like borderlines I've known, and lacks some commonly known BPD qualities. For example, borderlines are often very good at feigning normalcy. I once saw a BPD friend, ranting and raving after sneaking out of a psyche ward and trying to kill herself, instantly become calm and rational when the cops came to check on her. Many psychiatrists don't like working with borderlines because they can feel tricked when that patient convinces their doctor that they're fine now right before a suicide attempt.

Alice, on the other hand, is just purely odd. And her oddness seems to come entirely from her mental illness. It is as though Kristen Wiig was so concerned with getting the symptoms right that she never thought about who Alice would be without her mental illness. But in truth, people with mental illnesses have traits that have nothing to do with being mentally ill (although some psychiatrists do try to fit everything about their patients into their diagnosis).

Because of this, Alice is an interesting character but not a really compelling one.

Meanwhile, the intriguing premise never quite gels. Is the movie a satire of celebrity and our fascination with trashy talk shows? Is it an attempt to portray mental illness? Is it an attempt to get laughs out of mental illness?

I never really felt this movie had a vision, or a point of view. Like the main character, the story feels like it's a bunch of ideas stuck together rather than a cohesive drama.

While the movie feels a little undercooked, I did enjoy it. Wiig may seem more like a mildly autistic narcissist than a borderline, and the story may feel unsubstantial, but it is amusing to watch Alice create her entirely peculiar show and get into weird dietary fixations. The movie may not make a coherent whole, but the pieces are pretty good in themselves.

Yeah, it was a very weird, very odd film. Certainly not the same-old, same-old, so in that respect I was so enthralled by it all. I do think maybe the film needed a stronger directorial hand though, maybe someone who could find a more consistent, more tight balance on both the comedy and drama, and the pitch black humor. As it is, it does feel messy because of that... something about the film needed some polishing, I'm just not sure what. Wiig was really good, and actually a lot more impressive here than in The Skeleton Twins. Linda Cardellini was almost MVP, stealing her scenes like a pro. it could be funny and awkward, which is what it went for, but yeah I feel like in the hands of a better director (writer too) it could've been something really great. As it is, a solid B

Fools and their money are soon parted from one another. Nowhere does this saying hold true more than with lottery winners. Alice Klieg, diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, emerges from a solitary and sedentary life as the new winner of $86 million from the state lottery. She begins to buy airtime at a local television station that is desperate for cash. Alice's new talk show "Welcome to Me" is a perfect reflection of her impulsive, socially awkward, indecisive, random, obsessive, moody and sensitive self. It features some of her favorite recopies (meatloaf cake), traumatic events from her past (the "carousel of life"), and – of course – swans (she loves swans). Her insistence upon absolute control and predilection to get out of control, make for some interesting and eccentric shows that are alternately extremely boring and explosive. The dry and dark humor of the film fits the acting abilities of Kristen Wiig perfectly. The film is funny as well as raw. I wish there was more depth to the plot, however, for it relies too much on the wacky shows. Seen at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

This film tells the story of a woman with psychiatric illness, who wins $86 million from the lottery. She pays a production company millions of dollars to create her own TV talk show about the story of her life.

"Welcome to Me" is a pleasant surprise. The woman in question, Alice, is quirky but fun. She initially is awkward add a TV host, but as she gains experience, she becomes quite good at it. Her show is actually quite fun, even though I know it is wrong to like it because that is an exploitation of an unwell person. The ending is really quite touching, because she makes amends with her part and everyone around her. And the film also tells the belief that lottery winners often go back to the square one, but in here her journey to square one of a fulfilling journey.