Welcome to the Rileys

This DVD has been sitting on my table for a month. You've heard it before. Something that was on my Netflix queue that I cannot remember why I selected it.
Welcome to the Rileys was released in 2010 and directed by Jake Scott whom I believe is released to Tony Scott.
The main actors are few and strong, with...

• James Gandolfini as Douglas Riley, Gandolfini has been around for a while made is mark as Tony Soprano.
• Kristen Stewart as Allison and Mallory, Stewart is famous by way of those crappy vampire movies.
• Melissa Leo as Lois Riley.
• I saw Ally Sheedy in there as a Harriet, Lois's bitchy sister.  Quoting her from early in the movie...

Okay. I have to drive over here all the way from Zionsville every day because my nutcase sister can't walk down her own damn driveway. Lois? Somehow, someway, and someday you're just gonna have to walk out that door.

The story is about a couple who lost their 15 year daughter a few years ago.  The married parents are left in a sad life that neither can bear. Lois is a shut-in and Doug smokes and cries in the dark of the garage. Douglas goes to New Orleans on a business trip and in a chance meeting finds Mallory in a strip club. Mallory is about sixteen and looks just like the Doug's dead daughter.  He immediately learns that she is a orphaned minor and decides, perhaps serve as her father, watching out for her safety and trying to teach her some basic facts of life while indirectly coax her out of the sex trade.  Lois, on being told by Doug that he isn't coming home, breaks her self imposed prison and drives to New Orleans to be with her husband. After an initial shock the couple takes up the charge of helping this young woman.
Eventually Allison gets in trouble with the law and in a fit of anger runs off, the couple left without a goal and in caring for another has rekindled their love decides to head back to Indiana.  After a couple of weeks Allison calls and says she is headed for Las Vegas, apparently having cleaned up a little bit.  She asks if she can keep in touch which the couple is happy to accept.
Being unsure of what to expect in this movie, I was happily impressed and recommend to anyone.  Gandolfini plays the awkward father figure very well, Leo just as good as the recluse mother breaking out.  Kristen Stewart is impressive.
See it if you get a chance.

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