Four stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.1.16
Sally Field remains cute as a
bug: as personable and effervescent as she was back in 1965, when she debuted
as television’s Gidget.
The difference, all these years
later, is that she also has matured into a deceptively powerful actress. Too
many people take the bubbly exterior for granted — the signature cheerfulness —
and then act surprised when Field unleashes impressive layers of pathos or expressive
intensity.
We shouldn’t be surprised; her
dramatic chops have been well established ever since Norma Rae and Places in
the Heart, and subsequently well exercised in Steel Magnolias, a well-remembered
guest appearance on TV’s E.R., and 2013’s Oscar-nominated supporting role in Lincoln.
Given the right material, Field
can be a force of nature ... and Hello, My Name Is Doris definitely is the
right material.
Director Michael Showalter’s
bittersweet dramedy has been expanded from Doris and the Intern, an 8-minute
short by then film student Laura Terruso, who shared her work with Showalter
while he was teaching at her alma mater, New York University’s Tisch School of
the Arts. Obviously impressed, he and Terruso began a scripting collaboration that
has resulted in this feature film: a clever and sensitive expansion of what
began as little more than a droll comedy.
(Terruso’s short is readily
available for online viewing: an opportunity I strongly encourage ... but only
after you’ve seen this feature.)
We meet Doris Miller (Field), a
“woman of a certain age,” during her all-time worst personal crisis. Her mother
has just died, after having been “monitored” full-time by Doris, who put her
own life on hold in the process. We get hints that Mom was something of a
shut-in with a “clutter habit,” both traits having been absorbed, more or less,
by Doris.
With Mom barely in the grave,
Doris’ insensitive brother Todd (Stephen Root) and his mean-spirited wife
Cynthia (Wendi McLendon-Covey, the pluperfect shrew) are anxious for Doris to
sell the Staten Island house in which she was raised, and has spent all that
effort as a full-time caregiver. Todd and Cynthia wish to reap the financial
windfall.
Doris panics at the thought: What
Cynthia dismisses as the home’s mountains of junk, Doris regards as a “museum”
of accumulated memories shared with her late mother. As with most hoarders,
Doris simply refuses to acknowledge any sort of problem.
More to the point, she’s suddenly
adrift — answerable to nobody but herself — and utterly baffled by how to put
that first self-indulgent foot forward.
Doris has a few friends, notably
best gal-pal Roz (Tyne Daly), and they often attend museum and bookstore lectures
(in part because Roz wants access to the free food). One such outing features
motivational speaker Willy Williams, played to hilariously insincere perfection
by Peter Gallagher, whose vacuous platitudes unexpectedly inspire Doris to
become a better version of herself.
Everything is a matter of
perspective, Williams insists. The word “impossible” also can be viewed as “I’m
possible.” (Haven’t heard that one before, and if it’s original with Showalter
and Terruso, it’s a smile.)
That’s all the encouragement
Doris needs to pursue her new impossible dream, in the form of John Fremont
(Max Greenfield), the dynamic new art director at the company where she has
worked since the dawn of time. We get a sense that it was some sort of
mail-order catalog firm, back in the day, and now has morphed into a glossy
online endeavor staffed almost entirely by young New York hipsters.
Doris, a legacy employee, has
managed to keep up with low-level data entry; otherwise, she’s mostly ignored
by everybody, dismissed as a vaguely amusing relic, or perhaps an aging cat
lady.
Showalter and Terruso have great
fun with this place’s snarky atmosphere, and particularly the pretentious staff
supervisor (Rebecca Wisocky). Minor roles throughout the film are filled by
talented indie actors and actresses — some, like Natasha Lyonne, immediately
recognized — all of whom deftly sketch their characters via body language and
deliciously condescending dialog. (Millennials, bless their self-absorbed
hearts, are easy to make fun of; Showalter and Terruso do it quite well.)
The problem: Doris has
misconstrued John’s polite kindness, magnifying it into full-blown erotic
fantasies straight out of her bodice-ripping romance novels. Worse yet, she
seeks and accepts courtship advice from Roz’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Vivian
(Isabella Acres, quite adorable), who eagerly sets up a bogus social media
profile so that Doris can eavesdrop on John.
Cue the world’s most
embarrassingly amusing, and one-sided, courtship ritual.
What follows is orchestrated for
maximum cringe potential, as Showalter and Terruso set up scenarios almost
certain to humiliate poor Doris. But she remains game in the face of likely
mortification, and that’s the beauty of Field’s richly nuanced performance. Doris’
timing, choices and motivations may be all wrong, but she’s no less determined.
We easily understand, from
Field’s body language, that this romantic pursuit is way outside Doris’ comfort
zone, which makes her cautious resolve that much more heroic. Most crucially,
Field makes sure that we never view Doris as a burlesque, or a foolish object
of derision; this is a persuasively real person — sadly eccentric and out of
touch, to be sure — who stimulates the same protective instinct that we’d feel
for a sweet longtime neighbor fallen on hard emotional times.
Doris’ invigorated, take-charge
attitude lulls us into such a sense of false security, in fact, that we
overlook the fact that such seeming confidence is built on the shakiest of emotional
foundations. Reality hits during another encounter with Todd and Cynthia, at
which point Field unleashes a scene of panic-laden crisis that’s quite
literally breathtaking: a bravura moment that showcases some of the strongest
acting of her career.
By which time, of course, we’ve
fully accepted the reality of Doris Miller, as opposed to the acting artifice
of Sally Field merely playing a role.
Greenfield, a busy character
actor well recognized for his long-running current gig on TV’s New Girl, is
just right as John. This personable fellow is a delicate balancing act to begin
with: John’s instinctive compassion can’t become so overwhelming, in the face
of Doris’ unexpected behavior, that he becomes a clueless caricature.
Greenfield pulls it off, putting
his quirky smile and occasionally puzzled double-takes to excellent use. John
is just perceptive enough, while displaying a good-natured, get-along exterior,
to remain credible. If some of his responses to Doris’ clumsy overtures seem
too accommodating, it’s only because a guy of John’s age never, ever would be
inclined to imagine, let alone assume, such ulterior motives from somebody such
as she.
Elizabeth Reaser is nicely
understated as the psychologist hired by Todd to help “fix” Doris: one of the
most compassionate portrayals of a therapist I’ve seen in a mainstream film.
Daly is a hoot as Roz — a communist, and obviously proud of it — and Caroline
Aaron is equally amusing as Val, a frequent co-conspirator in the Doris/Roz
dynamic.
Much as we’re wholly captivated
by this droll and painfully poignant narrative, the script is not without
issues. A sidebar concerning Doris’ exposure to John’s favorite band — an electronica/hip-hop
outfit dubbed Baby Goya and the Nuclear Winters — wanders off into clumsy
territory involving an album cover photo shoot, the after-effects of which are
just abandoned. (This despite the fact that we really, really need to know what
happens next.)
In
all important respects, though, this is a thoroughly charming character study:
sensitively written and directed, and fueled by Field’s bravura performance.
Little films like Hello, My Name Is Doris rarely get remembered when Academy
Award nominations come around, and boy, it’ll be a true shame if Field gets
overlooked.
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