Rent Welcome To The Rileys (2010)

Welcome To The Rileys review by Alyse Garner - Cinema Paradiso

Starring Twilight heroine Kristen Stewart Welcome to the Rileys is a drama about an unhappily married man who seeks solace in the company of a young woman whilst away from home on a business trip.

Doug Riley (James Gandolfini) feels trapped in his almost thirty year marriage and feels it’s the final straw when his wife Lois (Melissa Leo), who hasn’t left the house in years, orders them a joint gravestone. He sparks up an affair with a waitress with whom he actually seems quite happy, but is unable to leave his wife as he seems implicitly to believe she wouldn’t be able to survive without him since their daughter was tragically killed in a car accident at 15, Thus Doug uses a plumbing convention business trip to take an extended leave of absence from his life and spend some time with a wayward young woman, Alison, whom he has developed a strange relationship with.

The relationship between Alison and Doug is a little reminiscent of Pretty Woman and that makes me a little uncomfortable at first, yet the story mercifully avoids most of the clichés of similar narratives and Doug sees Alison as a surrogate child, whom he cares for so deeply he chooses to sell his business in Indianapolis and relocate permanently to New Orleans.

When he informs his wife she surprises both her husband and the audience by mustering the courage to leave her home and drive to New Orleans to be with her husband. Upon her arrival you expect to see dramatic sparks fly when she learns of Doug’s new, strange relationship with the 16 year old prostitute, instead she behaves in an honest, moving and mature fashion, allowing her own misplaced motherly instincts to help the young runaway.

Despite the title sounding like a terrible rip off of a popular comedy franchise Welcome to the Rileys is in fact an interesting and often quite moving investigation into the complexities of relationships.