Sally Field vehicle finds humor in lonely eccentricity
I suppose you could praise Hello, My Name is Doris for the fact that it is a contemporary empowerment comedy that focuses on an older female character. And in fact, Sally Field brings much nuance and humor to her role as Doris Miller, a quirky 60-something adrift in millennial-centric New York City, yearning for some genuine human connection in a world that has largely marginalized her.
Doris Miller is an accountant for a stylish magazine in Manhattan. Her eccentric personal style (she looks like a Goodwill Store threw up on her) is informed by her penchant for trash-picking and hoarding. Having just lost her mother, Doris shambles around in her overstuffed Staten Island home, shuttles back and forth to work, and daydreams of a life very different from the one she has. Beyond her small circle of friends and her judgmental brother’s family, she is an invisible cog in the enormous wheel of modern America.
Then, on the fatuous advice of a self-help guru (glibly played by Peter Gallagher), Doris decides to bravely/foolishly pursue a much younger co-worker. This launches a comedy of manners mixed with occasional fantasy and leavened with a dose of heartbreak.
Directed by actor-writer Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer), the movie skates along on the charm of seeing our beloved Norma Rae dressed like a kaleidoscopic bag lady, out of place everywhere she goes. The underwritten screenplay by Showalter and Laura Terruso is so inattentive to detail that the audience is left to fill in the numerous blanks and patch over the implausibilties.
The cast, which in addition to Field as Doris and Max Greenfield (New Girl) as the May to her December, provides a strong complement of lived-in, resonant performances, especially from Tyne Daly as Doris’ best friend, as well as Kumail Nanjani and Natasha Lyonne as co-workers, Stephen Root and Wendi McClendon-Covey as her boorish brother and sister-in-law, and Elizabeth Reaser as the most hands-on therapist in film history.
At times, Hello, My Name is Doris vaguely reminded me of Hal Ashby’s transcendent 1979 Being There, which depicted a simpleton gardener’s meteoric rise to political adviser and media darling as he unthinkingly dispensed gardening advice that everyone mistook for profundity. There is nothing so profound going on here.
The admittedly uplifting story seemed to resonate with the audience with whom I attended the movie. But I could never be certain how I was supposed to feel about her quixotic stratagem. Am I laughing with Doris, or at her?
