Pun Salad

It's easy to make fun of Sally Field, because of (1) Gidget; (2) The Flying Nun. But that was (honest) nearly 50 years ago. And I don't know if I'm getting sentimental and sappy in my old age, but I found her to be excellent in this movie.

Yes, I can't deny the fact that I like her, right now, I like her! This movie could have been awful, but she makes it very enjoyable with her powerful performance.

Let me explain: Ms. Field plays the titular Doris. As the movie opens, she's bidding farewell to her mom, who she's been taking care of for decades in Mom's humble Staten Island home. She has problems: The house is stuffed to the gills with horded crap. She dresses funny and wears a ludicrous wig. She wears two pairs of glasses simultaneously. She has a Manhattan office job, but it seems she's kind of the female version of Milton from Office Space: a tolerated oddball.

But a chance meeting with a new employee, John, sets her mind reeling with improbably romantic scenarios. (Oh, yeah: she's also prone to spacing out while constructing inner fantasies.) Guess what? At this point, a few minutes into the movie Ms. Field has managed to make me care about what happens to Doris next. (A life-changing odyssey, as it turns out.)

The movie also has a clever script, and a great supporting cast: Stephen Root as Doris's brother, Wendi McLendon-Covey as his wife, Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley!) as a gay co-worker, Tyne Daly (Cagney, no Lacey) as Doris's best friend, Peter Gallagher as a self-help guru who actually seems to believe his own bullshit. Even Max Greenfield, who plays John: he could have been one of those interchangeable Hollywood pretty guys—I thought for a moment he was the guy who plays the Flash on TV—but he gives a fine performance too.