Say goodbye to Hello, My Name is Doris

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      Starring Sally Field. Rated PG.

      Sally Field and the rest do a surprisingly good job here of playing people who have never existed on this planet, and probably never will. Unfortunately, Hello, My Name Is Doris is not a sci-fi movie.

      Developing what started as a short, director Michael Showalter and screenwriter Laura Terruso come up with a kind of Harold and Maude–meets–The Intern story that really needed about three more passes in the script department.

      Field does her energetic best as Doris Miller, a fusty accountant in a hip Manhattan office. The script’s only explanation for her antimodernity is that she’s always lived on Staten Island with her mother, who just died.

      But none of her quirks or collectibles tell us much about Doris in particular. She’s just a daffy old lady, which doesn’t explain what happens when the company hires a new art director. The New Girl’s Max Greenfield plays this easygoing young studmuffin, who immediately treats Doris like she’s the Zooey Deschanel nobody noticed.

      With his encouragement, she starts running with a new crowd; they take it on faith that she’s groovy, baby, despite her lack of talent, wit, or basic speaking skills. Oh, plus there’s the stalking, the fake Facebook account, and other less desirable pursuits, which the film treats as just, ya know, what a gal’s gotta do these days. If the filmmakers had simply reined in her cartoonish behaviour and given Doris something interesting to say or do, she wouldn’t need to be in a pseudo-indie flick to land a guy—of any age.

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