Help, I've Fallen In Love And I Can't Get Up!

Year: 2016

Director: Michael Showalter

Cast: Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Tyne Daly 

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I’m pretty familiar with the work of Michael Showalter in the context of his partnership with David Wain, which produced the cult classic, all-over-the-place, summer camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer, the grotesquely underrated rom-com parody They Came Together, and the dull, overstuffed Netflix series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. While I mostly adore their work, it has always been plagued by unsightly flaws and a certain lack of focus. So I was intrigued by Hello, My Name is Doris, which was directed and co-written by Showalter without Wain’s influence. When he’s separated from the herd, what comic qualities does Showalter possess?

Well, the focus seems to be his at the very least.

In Hello, My Name is Doris, Doris (Sally Field) is a quirky older woman working at an anonymous cubicle job. After her mother passes away, she is forced to face her hoarding habits by her brother and his money-grubbing wife, who wants to sell the house Doris and her mother lived in. Things start to look up hen she meets the new guy at work: John (Max Greenfield), a pretty young thang who she fantasizes about constantly.

After some light Internet fraud and Facebook stalking with the help of her BFF Roz’s (Tyne Daly) granddaughter Vivian (Isabella Acres), she befriends John and hits it off with his hipster friends, who dig her weird outfits and quirky worldview. These experiences give her a new lease on life, but is she a fool for pursuing John, or is there something there?

Will he see the heart of gold beneath the visor?

The thing about Hello, My Name is Doris is that it’s a dismayingly generic paint-by-numbers romantic comedy. As much as I adore the fact that this is a movie that admits that people over 60 have romantic struggles, human emotions, and – most importantly – sex drives, the alternative protagonist here doesn’t prevent the movie from plugging her into a been-there done-that formula. Apparently David Wain is the out-there goofball of the team, because the film is as steadfastly mundane as it’s possible to be.

I swear, this film hits so many romantic comedy tropes, you could black out a chick flick cliché bingo card in 20 minutes flat. We get the sassy best friend who exists to cause a brief pit stop of drama at the end of the second act, the precocious teen helper monkey, a Manic Pixie Dream Guy who unwittingly helps the lead work out her personal issues with romance and her lifestyle… Doris is not a comedy pioneer, just a sad woman in a situation we’ve seen a billion times, even if the film fudges the specifics to be a little more kooky.

The reason this boring plot works on any level is unequivocally Sally Field. Not only does she bring her substantial acting chops to the film’s handful of dramatic scenes (which would be unjustified and melodramatic if she weren’t there to ground them in something authentic and human), she’s clearly having a good time in the role. Her obvious enthusiasm for this stereotypical part that she’ll probably never be given another opportunity to play makes Hello, My Name is Doris a sparkling soap bubble, a fun romp down a well-trod path.

And, truth be told, I probably own this outfit.

Probably, the part of Hello, My Name is Doris that brings the most to the table (other than Sally Field) is its skewering of hipster culture. Perfectly personified by fun. and bleachers’ Jack Antonoff (who’s dating Lena Dunham, which might be the most hipster thing you can do) as the ingeniously pretentious electro musician Baby Goya, the hyper-trendy modern subculture is depicted as a terrifying horde of über-progressive fashionaistas who speak like they just stepped out of a Lewis Carroll poem. The film doesn’t find too much to say about the group, but it utilizes some of their arch ridiculousness to provide a modern edge to the comedy that blends well with Doris’ search for something new, vibrant, and maybe a little bit scary.

And then there’s Natasha Lyonne, Kumail Nanjiani, and Rich Sommer as Doris’ self-involved, venal Greek chorus of coworkers, who combine their comic talents into a whirling vortex of yuppie nonsense. They’re not in the movie nearly as frequently as they should be, but they help ump the comedy along when the plot flags, which happens altogether too frequently.

You see, despite a solid cast and some decently funny observational humor, Hello, My Name is Doris can barely justify its existence. The thin plot gets exhausted by the hour mark, and though the film leaves a good impression by closing on a dynamic high note, there are large portions that are – quite frankly – deeply uninteresting. So far, I’m not on Team Showalter on this one, though I dig the work his casting director is doing.

TL;DR: Hello, My Name is Doris is a sweet, well-acted, but deeply unoriginal romance.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 849

When Harry Met Silly

Year: 2014

Director: David Wain

Cast: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Cobie Smulders

Run Time: 1 hour 23 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

As I make my way through the cinematic landscape of 2014, I'm beginning to notice a pattern. For every tepid comedy film released in 2014, there seems to be a similar and better comedy waiting on the horizon. For every irritating and pointless Zac Efron's That Awkward Moment there's a sprightly and effervescent Zac Efron's Neighbors. For every funny but average Date and Switch (review pending) there's the delightfully twisted They Came Together, our topic for today. And what exactly is that special element that makes all the difference between these sets of paralells?

Randall Park.

Hello.

OK, maybe the films don't live and die on his performances because he's only ever given bit roles. But I continue to maintain that this man is one of the most underutilized Hollywood performers working today. I'm excited for his appearances in the upcoming comedies The Interview and Sex Tape, despite the fact that every time I see his face I will be reminded of the time I walked into a screen door and sliced my nose open when helping him look for his shoes on the set of Awesome Asian Bad Guys (That's right, I just name dropped. Right in front of your face. What are you gonna do about it, punk?).

Anyway I love the guy and I think that any casting director who agrees with me is worth their salt, making any movie with his presence a more well-cast film across the board than its compatriots. See? I was going somewhere with that.

Because jumpin' bananafrass is They Came Together well-cast. This romantic comedy parody would perish without Amy Poehler's sharp-as-a-tack skewering of clumsy leading ladies and Paul Rudd's beatific smile. The overwhelming sincerity of their performances gives the film the straight face it needs in order to avoid drowning itself in winking, clumsy meta humor.

Although goodness knows I love that too.

They Came Together tells the story of two lovers telling the story of how they met. Molly (Poehler) and Joel (Rudd) are two typical romantic comedy protagonists. He, the successful corporate drone with a cheating girlfriend (Cobie Smulders), she the quirky and klutzy owner of a small candy shop in NYC. When Joel's company, Candy Systems & Research, decides to open up a massive shop across the street from Molly's, this complicates their already reluctant love-hate relationship even more.

This plot provides the basic structure for a battalion of cameos from TV actors including New Girl's Max Greenfield, SNL's Bill Hader and Kenan Thompson, 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer, and The Office's Ellie Kemper and Ed Helms. Much in the vein of the slightly less successful but equally buoyant 2013 comedy The To Do List, the film acts as a sandbox for these actors to break out of their established characters and just have some fun playing around in a feature.

The film begins with its most meta moments, which are frequently its weakest. Although it's funny in small doses, nearly the entire setup for the parody is comprised of winking reminders that this is, in fact, a corny romantic comedy. Now, I love self-aware humor, especially in this vein, but even the most delicious chicken risotto would be ruined by the chef standing over your shoulder and whispering "It's chicken risotto. Go on, taste it. It has all the qualities of a chicken risotto. Look, there's the chicken. There's the risotto. Put those together and guess what you get? Chicken risotto!"

In this case Paul Rudd is the chicken and Amy Poehler is the risotto. If you can't see why, you clearly need to get on my level of sophistication in film analysis.

I'll repeat, this is funny, but just a little wearying, like some of the more blatant "IT'S THE SAME" moments in 22 Jump Street. Luckily, as the movie settles into its narrative, it relaxes and allows itself to explore the winding avenues of absurdist humor and sight gags that populate the genre.

But this is no flimsy Meet the Spartans production here. Somewhere significantly closer to Airplane! (my absolute favorite film comedy of all time) than Date Movie, They Came Together delights in lampooning tropes of the genre rather than merely name dropping specific films and hoping people go "Hey! That was a movie I saw! I guess that means I should laugh." It is at this level on which the film operates at its most inspired, including a scene hilariously mocking a cliché I saw naught but four days ago in The Fault in Our Stars.

For there is practically no other film genre more prone to excessive adherence to formula and rife with trite banality than the romantic comedy. This allows They Came Together to set up gags in the vein of some of the strongest humor from the Golden Age of The Simpsons (which will probably come up a lot on this blog, because I've been watching the entire show for my job), meaning that a familiar joke or story beat will be set up, but subverted at the last second with a bit of twisted humor or negated entirely by literalizing the setup in the most preposterous scenario imaginable, provoking incredulous (and inexorable) laughter at every turn.

One might say it metaphorically throws the leaves in our faces.

With an absurd streak visible from space, the film is certainly one to remember. After a decade and change of increasingly anemic pop culture spoofs, They Came Together might just be the film to set Hollywood pop comedy on the right track again.

It's not perfect. It falls prey to an ill-advised scatological gag and the first half is certainly less promising than the second, but if it doesn't blindside you with wickedly sharp satire and keep you cracking up faster than a glacier in an Emmerich film, I'll eat my keyboard.

TL;DR: They Came Together is a breath of fresh air and one of the best genre spoofs since the parody heyday in the 80's.
Rating: 8/10
Should I Spend Money On This? I think you should. only It's 7 bucks on Amazon VOD! Fun for the whole family! You don't even have to put pants on!
Word Count: 1042