So, I want to like Welcome to the Rileys. I love me some James Gandolfini. I love me some Melissa Leo (and it's awesome to see her back and having a massive moment, in between Treme, Conviction, The Dry Land and Mildred Pierce). I love the idea of pairing them up. Gandolfini has had possibly the best run of actresses playing his fictional wives of any living actor: Edie Falco, Susan Sarandon, and now Leo? But all of that said, the premise behind this particular movie just doesn't seem believable:
I mean, finding a substitute daughter for one you lost to premature death smacks of denial. The chances that one would find a puppydog runaway stripper to stand in for your daughter smacks of something rather stranger. And the chance that once you've done that, the likelihood that your wife will recover from her massive, crippling depression by moving to New Orleans to take on this particular project with you is small indeed. It doesn't help that this trailer is intensely awkwardly cut, but if the line readings are all this angular and jarring, I'm not sure these fine actors can lift the premise above itself.