James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart form a bond in warm yet far-fetched 'Welcome to the Rileys'

On screen, James Gandolfini has become the big, beefy Buddha of unresolved internal conflict and quiet rage.

He developed the persona on "The Sopranos" and gives us a law-abiding version in "Welcome to the Rileys" as Doug, a hardware salesman from Indianapolis who uses a sales convention in New Orleans to take a break from his wife (Melissa Leo) and his stifling home, where the couple grieves messily and separately over the death of their teenage daughter.

In the big N.O., he meets a teen dancer/hooker named Mallory (Kristen Stewart), and the two develop the sort of dramatically symmetrical relationship common to screenwriting workshops, if not real life.

Doug's got an aching hole in his life where his daughter should be, and Mallory is a young runaway, vulnerable and alone. Soon, Doug is paying rent to stay at her place, functioning as a live-in dad.

I know, this sounds like the Sundance premise from hell, and you've also got Gandolfini's accent to deal with - his character's from Indianapolis, and for some reason the actor attempts a southern drawl (it fails).

Yet for all of the movie's conceptual and technical shortcomings, it is sometimes unexpectedly touching. There's something about Doug's approach to Mallory that makes emotional sense. He doesn't try to change her, rescue her, any of that (though he does start docking her $1 for every f-bomb, which adds up). He just wants to improve her reckless life around the edges, get her bathroom running, fix the electric, etc.

The sight of Doug doing chores around her apartment will make sense to dads (the few that can be dragged to this movie). There is something therapeutic in it, something that counseling and talking and emoting can't match. He feels useful again.

Everything's more or less fine until his wife shows up. She's able to assimilate the idea of Doug living asexually with a young hooker, but she finds she can't allow the girl to go on prostituting herself, and Doug's delicate little symbiotic paradise is lost.

"Rileys" isn't believable for a second, but it's often watchable, thanks to its hardworking cast. It's fun to watch Stewart step out of her "Twilight" chastity belt and have a go at this hooker role, spitting out dialogue that has about 30 synonyms for various parts of the female anatomy.

As Mallory, she talks candidly about the parameters of her job, stipulating that she will not have sex with German shepherds. Which I think is very bad news for Team Jacob.