This is really a coming of age story about a woman in her sixties. The movie starts with Doris’s mother dying, upsetting her whole world. Sally Field’s holds the movie together. She’s ridiculous, all dressed up with fake pieces to make her hair bigger, but she plays Doris with such heart and lack of self awareness. She’s on a quest of self discovery and romantic intrigue. There’s a new guy in her office, played by the bashful hunk Max Greenfield. Doris has a serious crush. Her best friend’s thirteen year old granddaughter helps her facebook stalk him, which sets her off on a grand adventure.
She listens to different music, and she goes to Brooklyn, and makes new friends! At times the hipster stereotypes feel overblown, but in a fun way. Jack Antonoff Of .fun plays the frontman of a fictional band with a great name that I can’t remember. The way the movie plays with the overlap between hipster culture and actual old stuff is neat. It could be a too easy one note joke, but Doris had enough other charms to work.
The movie’s biggest strength is the affection it shows for it’s leading lady. Doris isn’t the kind of person movies usually get made about, and her story is exciting! It was a very sweet quirky movie.
(mild spoiler) The ambiguous nature of the ending really worked for me. It isn’t resolved, and that’s alright. Knowing that these characters aren’t done with each other, that there’s still a conversation to have, felt like enough resolution. The lack of closure worked because there was movement. Doris had spent so much of her life stuck, the movie is about her world changing. How that all shakes out isn’t as important as the movement itself.
Bess in MPLS 