“Welcome To The Rileys” is a powerful drama about finding hope in the most unusual of places. Once a happily married and loving couple, Doug and Lois Riley (James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo) have grown apart since losing their teenage daughter eight years prior. Leaving his agoraphobic wife behind to go on a business trip to New Orleans, Doug meets a 17-year-old runaway (Kristen Stewart) and the two form a platonic bond. For Lois and Doug, what initially appears to be the final straw that will derail their relationship, turns out to be the inspiration they need to renew their marriage.
Ever since the death of their daughter Emily, Doug (James Gandolfini) and Lois Riley (Melissa Leo) have been drifting apart. As Lois wrestles with a suffocating sense of guilt over her daughter’s death, Doug copes by entering into an affair with Vivian, a local waitress. Lately, Lois hasn’t even been able to muster the courage to venture outside, summoning hairdressers to her home in order to maintain appearances and communicating with few people other than her sister Harriet and the local pastor. When Vivian dies and Doug finds himself in a Baton Rouge strip club during a business trip, he realizes he’s come to a dangerous crossroads in life.
Turning down an offer for a private dance by 16-year-old stripper Mallory (Kristen Stewart), Doug instead accompanies the girl home and makes a most unusual proposition: If Mallory will allow him to stay in her run down apartment long enough to straighten himself out, he will pay her $100 a day for her trouble. For Mallory, who isn’t used to getting money for nothing, it seems like a great deal. She accepts, and Doug phones Lois to tell her he won’t be coming home. As time passes, Doug and Mallory settle into an unconventional kind of domesticity.
Meanwhile, back home, Lois realizes that she’ll have to act fast in order to save her marriage, even if that means venturing well outside her comfort zone for the first time in nearly a decade. Most days she can’t even make it to the mailbox, but after a couple attempts, Lois manages to start up her car and get on the freeway heading south. When Lois arrives in Louisiana and discovers that her husband is living with a foul-mouthed, underage hooker, she is at first horrified. Like Doug before her, however, Lois quickly warms to Mallory due in part to her striking similarities to Emily. Before long, Lois, too, has moved in, and the three form something of an unconventional family. But when Lois attempts to steer Mallory from the path of self-destruction, the young girl bristles. Later, Mallory is hospitalized after being badly beaten by a client, and Doug and Lois rush to be by her side. When Lois admits to Doug how their daughter really died, his kind understanding gives hope for a new beginning.
“Welcome To The Rileys” screened at the 2010 Sundance film festival to positive reviews. Chicago critic Roger Ebert said the film was “[o]ne of the buzz champs of Sundance 2010. Gandolfini demonstrates that although he may not be conventionally handsome, when he smiles his face bathes you in the urge to like him. Kristen Stewart here is tougher even than her punk rocker in The Runaways. Who knew she had these notes? I’m discovering an important new actress.”
“Welcome To The Rileys” stars James Gandolfini, Stewart and Academy Award nominee Melissa Leo. The film hits theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston on Friday, October 29, 2010.
In the film. Stewart plays a stipper and while filming she was reportedly offered a job at a strip club. “It was an incredibly impactful experience,” Stewart told MTV News. “But at the same time, it’s not like I was incredibly altered at the end of it. It’s hard to relate to this story, because I couldn’t have had a more different upbringing. I can’t relate to the kind of loss and weird incomplete feeling or whatever.”