Page 31 - ATODAY
P. 31
PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Thursday 10 March 2016
Nearing 70, Sally Field plays a woman still coming of age
JAKE COYLE In this March 2, 2016 photo, Sally Field poses for a portrait while promoting her new film “Hello, My that way for more than half
AP Film Writer Name Is Doris,” at The Four Seasons in Los Angeles. a second.”
NEW YORK (AP) — It sounds “Hello, My Name Is Doris”
like a misprint, but it’s not: Associated Press began as an eight-minute
Sally Field has headlined short by Laura Terruso, then
just one movie in the last day, is a blend of tones has been the story of her a lot of movement,” says a film student at New York
two decades. — broadly funny, dramati- career. Field. “But it has been SO University. Her teacher,
The reasons why are many. cally tender — and popu- “It’s always been a strug- gradual. I’ve been here for Showalter, thought it was
Hollywood doesn’t exactly lated by veteran perform- gle. It’s not a new struggle going on 53 years. It’s been worth developing and the
churn out good parts for ers like Tyne Daly, Stephen to me,” she said in a recent so incredibly, incrementally two stretched the story into
middle-aged or older ac- Root and Peter Gallagher. interview. “But certainly as gradual.” a feature screenplay.
tresses, even for beloved Holding it all together is the I’ve gotten older, put it this In person, Field, aside from Showalter, an alum of the
two-time Oscar winners. ever-plucky Field, outfitted way, it doesn’t get easier.” looking stunning for a wom- sketch comedy troupe
Field has also been drawn with two pairs of eyeglasses Field has followed the ris- an nearing 70, is disarming- “The State,” considered
elsewhere, back to televi- around her neck and a nest ing outrage over gender ly direct. Field the “pie-in-the-sky”
sion, where she got her start of hair, Field’s intentionally equality in the movie indus- Those who work with her casting option, and was
in the 1960s on “Gidget” messy version of a Brigitte try with a mix of optimism say that straightforward flabbergasted when she
and “The Flying Nun.” And Bardot doo. and wariness. She’s spent matter-of-factness is how agreed. Her presence and
then there’s the fact that Made for only about $1 years watching women she approaches making a focus, he says, led the cast
Field isn’t much inclined to million and shot in three filmmakers fail to land big movie, too. and crew to “raise their
play, as she says, “the tradi- weeks, it’s an unusually in- movies and female-led “As soon as you say any- game to meet her.”
tional mother thing.” die project for Field, who films be passed over by stu- thing to her that has to “She walked into a situation
“I’m certainly at a point jumped at the chance to dios. do with her status or stat- — a tiny little indie movie
in my life where I don’t do play Doris. The hunt for such “Certainly you can’t say ure, she’ll just say ‘Oh shut with a bunch of young
anything that I don’t want characters in a male-dom- that nothing has hap- up!’” says Greenfield. “She people wet behind the
to do,” Field says. “There inated industry, Field says, pened. There has been doesn’t let you treat her ears — and she came in so
are things that come to funny, so crisp and so bril-
me, maybe the script is liant,” says Showalter. “She
good but you don’t really hasn’t lost it one bit.”
need me in this movie to Field would seem to have
stand at the door and say, little in common with the
‘Drive carefully.’” timid Doris, but she ac-
“Hello, My Name Is Doris” knowledges having “ter-
is a reminder of what the rible social anxiety.”
movies have been missing ‘’I am incredibly shy and I
out on. In the film, directed am sort of a notorious her-
and co-written by Michael mit,” she says. “My sons
Showalter, Field stars as push me, and I have a few
a spinsterish, daydream- friends that say, ‘OK, time’s
ing New York accountant up. We’re coming to get
who, after her mother dies, you.’”
cautiously begins seeking Field, who has three sons,
out new experiences and splits her time between Los
pursuing — comically, awk- Angeles and New York,
wardly, sweetly — a much where she’s expected to
younger man: an art direc- return to Broadway this fall
tor at her Manhattan office in a production of Tennes-
played by Max Greenfield. see Williams’ “The Glass
The film, which opens Fri- Menagerie.” q
Review: ‘Peacekeeping’ transcends pre-quake Haiti setting
JENNIFER KAY a finalist for the Nation- did not happen before by her own homeland. It This book cover image re-
Associated Press al Book Award, as a novel an earthquake crippled playfully picks apart cliches leased by Sarah Crichton
While plenty has been about anthropological Haiti in 2010, and the U.N. about Haitian resilience Books/FSG shows “Peace-
written, fiction and non- studies in Thailand. Neither peacekeeping mission he and mysticism to toy with keeping,” by Mischa Berlinski.
fiction, about Haiti’s po- description really covers describes doesn’t share the idea of suffering and
litical disgraces, natural the ways in which Berlinski the same scandals or suc- whether wanting to do Associated Press
disasters, cultural enigmas probes the failures of lan- cesses as the U.N. force in good creates its own kind
and entrenched dysfunc- guage when stories told by Haiti now. of hell and absurdist the-
tion, Mischa Berlinski’s new foreigners converge with ater for everyone involved.
novel stands out for doing stories told by locals. “Peacekeeping” revolves Berlinski immerses the
far more than dramatizing around a failed Florida cop reader in an environment
news headlines about the Berlinski writes from person- looking for a life reboot as so richly detailed that one
beleaguered Caribbean al experiences that he has a U.N. policeman, a light- almost hears the buzz of
nation. transported to an alternate skinned, diaspora-educat- insects through the pages,
On its surface, “Peace- reality. He adds a disclaim- ed Haitian judge making but the novel’s plot tran-
keeping” is about interna- er to “Peacekeeping” that a run in local politics and scends its tropical setting,
tional intervention in Haiti. he has reimagined recent the judge’s dark-skinned resulting in a deeper explo-
It also would be tidy to sum Haitian history: the novel wife whose deportee status ration of what it means to
up his debut, “Fieldwork,” hinges on an election that has left her feeling trapped be an observer.q
