HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS: A Pleasant Surprise

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS

(Dir. Michael Showalter, 2015)

Many film fans will never forget Sally Field’s speech upon winning her second Oscar back in 1985. A giddy Field told the audience that getting the gold meant “so much more” to her than her previous win, and after thanking her family and fellow cast members from A PLACE IN THE HEART, she thanked the voters and concluded that “I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”

It was a moment that was embarrassing, yet endearing at the same time. Field’s new film, HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS, her first starring role in a decade, has the very same effect.

It’s the second directorial effort by Michael Showalter, who comedy fans know from such cult works as the ‘90s MTV sketch series The State and the much loved camp satire WED HOT AMERICAN SUMMER. Judging by his first film, 2005’s THE BAXTER, and his co-writing credit on David Wain’s 2014 spoof THEY CAME TOGETHER, Showalter has a thing about deconstructing rom com tropes, but here he plays it relatively straight.

Field plays the titular Doris Miller, a 60something-aged mousy, bee-hive haired, cat-eye glasses wearing accountant in a hip New York fashion company who falls for the new art director, John Fremont, portrayed by Max Greenfield, best known as Schmidt on the Fox sitcom New Girl.

Doris finds herself having Ally McBeal-ish daydreams about John, and, with the help of her best friend's (Tyne Daly) granddaughter (Isabella Acres), sets up a fake Facebook page so she can cyberstalk him.

Doris’ life is in a state of transition as her mother, who she’d had been taking care of for decades has recently passed, and her brotherTodd (Stephen Root), and his snippy wife Cynthia (Wendi McLendon-Covey) want to her to sell the family’s cluttered Staten Island house.

With inspiration from a self help motivational guru (a great all too brief turn by Peter Gallagher), Doris starts to think she can get John’s attention. This leads to her showing up at a concert of John’s favorite band Baby Goya and Nuclear Winters (Jack Antonoff of the band Fun plays the front man), and she succeeds in making a splash in her colorful ‘80s neon attire. So much so that Antonoff wants her to pose for the cover of the band’s next album.

Doris is able to get close to John – they have a nice scene talking about past relationships at a diner - but it turns out he has an age-appropriate girlfriend (Beth Behrs of Two Broke Girls). Heartbroken over this, Doris posts a message on John’s Facebook wall that causes the young couple to break up. It’s now up to Doris to declare her love for John at his Thanksgiving party.

There are moments that made me cringe in HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS, but they were balanced with moments of pure charm and heart. Field’s Doris is adorkable for sure, but the actress fleshes out the character making her so much more than the expected caricature. In scenes with her concerned family and friends such as Daly Field is able to give Doris some dramatic heft too.

The well groomed Greenfield does a good job too with John. It’s a standard oblivious nice guy/everyman role but he nails it and makes us feel for him when he learns the truth about Doris.

Showalter, who co-wrote the film with Laura Terruso based on Terruso’s 2011 short film “Doris and the Intern,” has made his most real-feeling work here. It’s a pleasant surprise because from the outside it looks like a typical cheesy rom com, a commercially minded mix of THE INTERN and HAROLD AND MAUDE.

But step inside and you find a much, more likable production that’s not stained with cheap laughs nor cheap sentiment.

For years, I’ve misremembered Field’s Oscar quote that I mentioned above. I thought it was: “You like me, you really like me!” and I was going to say that I liked this movie, but didn’t really like it as it could’ve been a bit funnier and maybe a little less predictable. 

But despite those beefs, I'll stick with the sentiment from her original quote and say that I can’t deny the fact that I liked it, right now. I liked it.

More later...

LINCOLN: The Film Babble Blog Review

LINCOLN (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2012)

At the beginning of Steven Spielberg’s LINCOLN, based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2005 bestseller “Team of Rivals,” we meet the friendly, soft spoken Abraham Lincoln, played by Daniel Day Lewis in another Oscar caliber performance, as he’s conversing with soldiers, both black and white, in the Army of the Potomac’s camp.

When more than one of the infantryman starts reciting the Gettysburg Address with gusto to our 16th President,  I was thinking ‘what, is this written by Aaron Sorkin?’

I knew that it wasn’t - LINCOLN’s screenplay was penned by playwright Tom Kushner, best known for ANGELS IN AMERICA and Spielberg’s MUNICH - but the scene’s simultaneous attempt at gravitas and heartstring-tugging so reminded me of Sorkin’s style that the comparison was hard to shake. However, in this case, that’s not a bad thing.

Spielberg’s modest epic isn’t a life-spanning biopic; it concerns the pivotal last leg of Lincoln’s life, from January 1865 to his death several months later, in which he tirelessly fought to pass the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and end the Civil War.

Although it begins on the battlefield, only briefly do we see combat (there’s nothing that compares to the SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’s lengthy opening Normandy invasion sequence), because the film is more interested in the back room deals, with the suspense coming from how close the vote over the 13th Amendment was in the House of Representatives.

Of course, we all know how it’s going to turn out, but that doesn’t harm the feeling of being a fly on the wall for some of the most crucial conversations in America’s storied past.

A cast of recognizable faces help bring history alive, including Tommy Lee Jones (once a scene stealer always a scene stealer, especially as he has the most humorous moments here) as Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, Sally Field as First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (Field’s one-on-ones with Day-Lewis are wonderful - two Academy Award winners reminding us what won them those awards in the first place), the always welcome Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a brief part as Honest Abe’s son Robert Todd Lincoln, and - thank the Heavens he’s still with us - Hal Holbrook, who once played Lincoln himself in a 1976 television project, as the wise, and very old political figure Francis Preston Blair.

Every other face seems to be somebody you may know too - James Spader, David Strathairn, Bruce McGill, Gulliver McGrath (last seen in DARK SHADOWS and HUGO), Jared Harris, Jackie Earle Haley, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Hawkes are all on hand.

Day-Lewis’s and Spielberg don’t offer us a larger than life Lincoln, they give us a humble man passionately driven to change the fate of human dignity (as he puts it), and it’s a portrayal to believe in. It’s made the more powerful because Spielberg refrains from CGI (an era-appropriate Washington D.C. could’ve been created with lavish special effects), and keeps his cameras (or more accurately cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s cameras) tight on these grand men (or in the case of Lee Pace’s character Democratic Congressman Fernando Wood, not-so-grand).

Spielberg’s long-time composer John Williams (this is their 26th film together) provides a suitably grandiose score, that gets cheesy at times, but overall effectively enhances the narrative turns, even if I’m having trouble remembering it right now.

For most of its almost 3 hour running time (of course, it’s long!) LINCOLN has the thrust of the best entertainment about political matters from the 1939 classic MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON to the acclaimed NBC drama The West Wing (Sorkin again!), but a few sections drag, and there were times that I thought it might’ve been better as HBO mini-series.

But that probably would’ve denied us the excellent work of Day-Lewis and other A-list cast members though.

There will be many folks that will be turned off by the notion of a long talky history lesson, but with the sheer strength of Day-Lewis’ incredible acting, and Spielberg’s subtle construction (and minimum of his trademark corny sentiment), LINCOLN ought to win over many more folks with the patience to take in what’s being said, how things were changed, and why, to this day, its title subject is considered to be the greatest American President of all time.

More later...