HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS (director/writer: Michael Showalter; screenwriter: Laura Terruso/from Terruso’s short film Doris & the Intern; cinematographer: Brian Burgoyne; editor: Robert Nassau; music: Brian H. Kim; cast: Sally Field (Doris Miller), Max Greenfield (John Fremont), Beth Behrs (Brooklyn), Stephen Root(Todd Miller), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Cynthia ), Elizabeth Reaser (Doctor Edwards), Isabella Acres (Granddaughter, Vivian), Natasha Lyonne (Sally), Tyne Daly (Roz), Peter Gallagher (Willy Williams); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Riva Marker, Daniel Crown, Jordana Mollick, Kevin Mann, Michael Showalter, Laura Terruso; Roadside Attractions; 2015)
“For Sally Fields fans, her presence should be enough to make this slight film bearable.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
An amiable Sally Field comedy, that poses as a hip indie on loneliness. It’s directed with mixed results by Michael Showalter (“The Baxter”), and is co-written by Showalter and Laura Terruso. It’s based on Terruso’s short film Doris & the Intern. Fields plays the senior citizen hoarder eccentric Doris Miller, who lives on Staten Island with her ailing mom. She continues to live there when her mom dies, which displeases her grasping brother Todd (Stephen Root() and his two-faced wife Cynthia (Wendi McLendon-Covey). They wish to sell the house, and send her for psychiatric help to a therapist (Elizabeth Reaser) to work out her problem as a hoarder. Doris takes the ferry to work every day in Manhattan, where she’s an old-fashioned bookkeeper in the accounting department. Doris develops a crush on her fashion firm’s new 30-ish laid back art director from LA, John Fremont (Max Greenfield). When attending a lecture by a motivational speaker (Peter Gallagher), she’s encouraged to go after John even if the relationship seems out of the question. To connect with John, the feisty 13-year-old Vivian (Isabella Acres), the granddaughter of Doris’ best friend (Tyne Daly), instructs Doris on how to track John’s likes through Facebook. This calls for setting up a fake profile to get entry to his site. The nice young man, interested in avant gard rock music, remains clueless about Doris’s passion for him, as she breaks up his budding relationship with the youthful folk singer Brooks (Beth Behrs) and forms a platonic one with him while changing her personality to run around with a new group of rockers. For Sally Fields fans, her presence should be enough to make this slight film bearable. For others, it might be too squirmy sitting through such a flimsy and uninteresting sitcom story.
REVIEWED ON 11/1/2016 GRADE: C+
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
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