You Hurt My Feelings
Nicole Holofcener returns with a characteristic and pleasing comedy about the delicate balance of honesty and support in a marriage.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies
For more than twenty-five years the writer/director Nicole Holofcener has been a pleasingly individual contributor to American independent cinema. Starting with her very first feature, 1996’s Walking and Talking, she established a decidedly personal tone in comedies which, like those of Woody Allen, often centred on life in New York, but did so from a female perspective. It was an approach which was not lacking in good roles for male actors, albeit that it was often the actresses who shone brightest. Among them were Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Frances McDormand, Jennifer Aniston and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It is the latter who stars in You Hurt My Feelings which sees a welcome return to cinema for Holofcener who of late has been working mainly in television. She did contribute to the appealing 2018 comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? as co-writer with Jeff Whitty, but Enough Said made in 2013 was until now her last cinema work as writer and director unless one counts the 2018 piece The Land of Steady Habits made for Netflix.
In seeking to create comedies featuring convincingly drawn characters whose lives reflect issues that real people face, Holofcener immediately found her own voice. For many she immediately hit her target but, while I responded positively to her approach, I did myself feel that some of her works fell somewhat short of her intentions. Indeed, for me it was Please Give made in 2010 which fully realised her potential. You Hurt My Feelings is not quite on that level but it is delightful to have a new film from her which once again could be the work of no other artist.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus demonstrated in Enough Said that she had a perfect understanding of Holofcener’s style and how to play it. Here she portrays a writer named Beth who has successfully published a memoir but is now struggling with a novel which has gone through many drafts. She has doubts regarding its quality but is buoyed up while it remains a work in progress by the positive reactions of her husband, Don (Tobias Menzies). But then, in the film’s key scene, Beth happens to overhear a conversation between Don and Mark (Arian Moayed), the latter being the husband of Beth's younger sister, Sarah (Michaela Watkins). What is said to Mark makes it clear that Don doesn't take to his wife's novel at all. In truth he has been pretending to like it in order to give her the encouragement that she needs.
The discovery that he has been lying is central to the tale being told here. Beth and Don are devoted to each other but Beth now feels that Don’s false words, however well-intentioned, are a betrayal that undermines the trust that had seemed to exist between them. For the viewer the question of whether or not this kind of lying is ever acceptable comes to vibrate in its own right, but meanwhile the personal tale unfolding extends the theme by incorporating a variant of it. That occurs when we discover that the couple’s son, Elliot (Owen Teague), looks back on his childhood with a feeling of dismay over those times when Beth encouraged him in school endeavours by overpraising his efforts. He reveals that it had only served to make him more aware of his limitations and consequently he had felt pressurised. The film may raise these matters through the particular tale being told but Holofcener clearly hopes that viewers will ponder these issues in relation to their own lives. Since many of us will have been tempted to tell these kind of white lies, You Hurt My Feelings achieves this with ease and has no problem in being meaningful to viewers who have a very different lifestyle from that of Beth and Don.
That said, the central concern could be considered rather slight for a feature film, even one limited to 93 minutes. It is mainly that sense which prevents this movie from reaching the heights of Please Give, but it helps enormously that Don works as a therapist because that enables Holofcener to incorporate numerous scenes featuring his clients. Some of them reappear at intervals during the film, all of them are well played and they prove a perfect fit for Holofcener’s writing. Carolyn and Jonathan (Amber Tamblyn and David Cross), a married couple sharply at odds except in their dissatisfaction with Don’s therapy, are central to a number of particularly choice scenes. One also finds here a splendid example of Holofcener’s comic writing when late on their behaviour leads to the neatest of gags and one realises how cleverly a much earlier sequence has paved the way for this moment.
Tobias Menzies and the other male players all do well, but once again it is the actresses in a Holofcener film who make the strongest impression. The veteran player Jeannie Berlin in a cameo role as the mother of Beth and Sarah is on fine form but, alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, it is Michaela Watkins, an actress new to me, who stands out by proving no less adept. She too appreciates exactly what Holofcener’s writing calls for as it balances the comic with the recognisably human. Overall, it is a real pleasure to have Holofcener back and not least because intelligent comedies of her kind have become all too rare these days.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross, Zach Cherry, Jeannie Berlin, LaTanya Richardson, Sarah Steele, Josh Pais.
Dir Nicole Holofcener, Pro Nicole Holofcener, Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Screenplay Nicole Holofcener Ph Jeffrey Waldron, Pro Des Sally Levi, Ed Alisa Lepselter, Music Michael Andrews, Costumes Chloe Karmin.
FilmNation Entertainment/Likely Story-Signature Entertainment.
93 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 26 May 2023. UK Rel: 8 August 2023. Available on Prime Video. Cert. 15.
