Welcome to Me 2014

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Shira Piven has directed this movie with a deft but perfectly zany touch. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: It all plays more like a long, dark TV comedy sketch than an actual movie. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The movie is nothing more than a labored series of skits that play like ideas from rejected TV pilots. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Kristen Wiig plays a woman with borderline personality disorder in this startlingly inspired comedy from Shira Piven. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Welcome To Me can't quite figure out what to do with this ludicrous premise. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's difficult to know what to feel when watching "Welcome to Me." That's a compliment. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A nervy, discomfiting comedy starring Kristen Wiig and a deep bench of supporting talent. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Screenwriter Eliot Laurence and director Shira Piven... [have] got the ideal star in Wiig, whose vacant gaze, frozen smile, and preternatural calm have always suggested a vast reservoir of madness. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The movie is small, but the actors make it seem larger, like binoculars turned around the right way. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Funny, dark, and riding a very fine line in its depiction of mental illness, it may be the best thing we could hope would emerge from the side of Wiig that gave us Gilly. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Though some of the jabs "Me" takes at reality TV are clever, the film, like Alice, tends to fracture at key moments. What makes it worth watching is Wiig. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Welcome to Me" has its charming, funny and sensitive moments, but it also suffers from its own form of instability. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The movie's idiosyncratic delights pack a wild metaphorical punch. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Welcome to Me" is not just a character study, but a satire on how the self-centered emptiness of TV is a kind of epidemic. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: By turns touching, amusing and genuinely disturbing, it defies expectations and easy categorization, forgoing obvious laughs and cheap emotional payoffs in favor of something much odder and more interesting. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: At turns horribly funny and simply horrific, Piven's film suggests our therapeutic age has reduced us all to psychic cripples who resort to emotional exhibitionism in lieu of honest self-examination and self-expression. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There's not much plot here and very little in the way of character development. Alice is defined by her disorder and the screenplay isn't interested in delving into her life and relationships. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: It's a tricky business playing someone who is mentally ill and perhaps should be confined for observation, especially in a dark comedy. Wiig manages to make Alice funny as hell, endearing, sad and sometimes a little frightening. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Malicious, hilarious and heartbreaking ... one of the biggest movie surprises of 2015 so far. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: There's dark comedy, and then there's take-no-prisoners, dare-you-to-keep-looking dark comedy. Kristen Wiig's "Welcome to Me" falls decidedly in the latter category, making us laugh but feel deeply unsettled about doing so. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This is Wiig's show, and connoisseurs of the comedy craft will flip for her. Read more

Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail: Welcome to Me is an unsettling comedy, and I mean that in the best possible way. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: It's the equivalent of tripping someone on crutches and then inviting her over for tea. Read more

David Ehrlich, Time Out: It's here that Wiig's wallflower wit finally dovetails with a lead role that has the depth to support it, as the film evolves into an exuberant cross between Synecdoche, New York and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Read more

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun: No shortage of talent here. Pity they're all underused. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Welcome to Me works better as a character study than a full-fledged story. Audiences will have little sense of Alice beyond what they first see. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The movie's messy. But it's funny, pungent, and sometimes affecting. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: I'm not even sure it can be called a movie; it feels like a setup and a character in search of a story. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: There's an emotional nakedness to Wiig's unhinged performance as Alice Klieg, a woman with borderline personality disorder who has stopped taking her antipsychotic medication, that sometimes makes her hard to watch, even as she is in the limelight. Read more