Sally Field can still bring it. Not sure why I doubted; it’s not like her talent went anywhere. Hmmm, have you ever seen an actor get worse over time? I mean anybody can have a bad performance, and many have found the exact role he/she (and nobody else) was meant to play, but have you ever really seen an actor’s actual talent erode? Let me think about that one.
Do you remember seeing Sally Field as “The Flying Nun” or “Gidget” or Smokey and/or Bandit? Remember how adorable she was? She’s still adorable! She’s just old. That’s ok. It’s not a crime. People get old. Michelle Pfeiffer is still sexy; I just don’t fantasize about her … quite as often. :blush: Doris (Field) has just lost her mother and her direction. It’s like the movie catches her off-guard; she had it together before the action started. She was in charge of a home, a job, and a relative to care for. Without her mother, she lives alone and her brother Todd (Stephen Root) is contesting the Staten Island house; her thankless midtown underling job kinda blows. How long has she been a low-level employee at this nothing company, anyway?
Todd is becoming a problem, what with his “hoarding” accusations and all. Give it a rest, Todd. She’s barely a level 2. Wait until you’ve got lack of access to rooms or a serious pest problem. Luckily, Doris has a friend in Roz (Tyne Daly), also
from a hush-hush epoch in history when names like “Doris and “Roz” were perfectly acceptable.
So what do you do if you’re Doris? The answer? Fall in love … with Schmidt from “New Girl,” no less. This is my favorite non-romance of the year. Doris takes one solid look at that metaphorical mountain and keeps climbing it anyway. What does modern twentysomething romance take? FB profile? Check. Electronic music knowledge? Check. New wardrobe? Check. Perhaps being under the age of 70? We’re working on it.
Hello, My Name Is Doris is not the kind of film you see on a whim, which is a shame, cuz it’s among the whimmiest-forgiving films this year. The film accepts its dotty aging heroine and loves her all the same, and you kinda have to have a heart of stone not to feel similarly. No, there aren’t any 3D action films claiming $100M at the box office for septuagenarian women, but gimme one of these over one of those nine days out of ten.
♪In a time of monkey suits
I was their granny
Ensure in my veins
So tell me what’s a “trannie?”
With plastic wrapped love seat
Got a beau steady to meet
Eighteen cats in my pad with Friskies
Kill the gaslight
And get on that ferry
Stalking a guy who’s never
Heard of Chuck Berry
Soy una pumita
I’m a cougar, baby
So why doncha feel me?♫
Rated R, 95 Minutes
D: Michael Showalter
W: Laura Terruso, Michael Showalter
Genre: Cougarin’
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who can remember “Gidget”
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: HR reps
♪ Parody inspired by “Loser”
