When I saw the preview for Hello, My Name Is Doris, I knew that I would see it in theaters. First, it takes place in NYC. Second, I like everyone in the cast. Third, I was hopeful that the quirky, older woman suddenly finding a place to belong with an unlikely group of people would outweigh the awkwardness of the crush. Fourth, I want to see older women in films so I pay for those films during opening weekends.

Hello, My Name Is Doris is about a woman in her 60s at a turning point in her life. Her mother has died, and she must move out of the only home that she has ever lived in so she and her brother can divide the proceeds of her mother’s estate. To further complicate the situation, she is a hoarder. She works at a place where she does not fit in, but it is there where she discovers an object of her affection-a man half her age. She is literally old enough to be his mother. Armed with confidence after she and her friends attend a book promotional lecture by a self-help guru, she believes anything is possible and changes her life dramatically with mixed results.

If anyone other than Sally Fields was in Hello, My Name Is Doris, the movie would be unwatchable, but because of her and the cast, particularly Tyne Daly, it is enjoyable. Watching Hello, My Name Is Doris feels like watching a horror movie. You want to scream at her, “Don’t do it!” I often had to cover my eyes and found myself grabbing the person that I went with in terror. Hello, My Name Is Doris isn’t about an older, single woman. Hello, My Name Is Doris is about an older, single woman who may have some undiagnosed mental disorders.

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

What is provocative about Hello, My Name Is Doris is that it dares to challenge our assumptions that Doris should not go after the young man, but fails to stay rooted in confronting the reality of how older women navigate within society. There is a potential younger man interested in her at the Baby Goya after party, but the movie makes Doris ignore him. Instead she is a stalker who engages in behavior that harms her intended love interest. She is neither an appropriate friend nor an appropriate love interest, but not because of age-because of boundaries.

Hello, My Name Is Doris constantly pulls punches at the exact moment it should be landing them. There is a great moment where her brother condescendingly explains how they agreed that she would take care of their mother then split the estate. Doris magnificently loses her crap, but that scene is more targeted at exposing her mental incapacity to cope with change than her well-earned right to call him on his privilege and gender exploitation of their situation (I call it the female default caregiver tax). Instead the issue is solved as she happily moves out and quits her job to start a new beginning.

Um, Hello, My Name Is Doris, where is she starting this new beginning? Real estate in the New York area is insanely expensive, and it is extremely difficult for older people to find meaningful office work with benefits so where is she happily and magically going? People don’t just happily quit their jobs unless they can retire or have another job lined up. The movie even has the boss point out that she would not normally work there if her employer did not get a benefit for retaining people who were part of the business before it morphed into whatever it was when the movie started.

Side note: Doris NEVER touches her cat. She is dead inside.

I really wanted to like Hello, My Name Is Doris, but it fell dramatically short of expectations. Watch it for the cast, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself disappointed by the end.