Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Stars: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias McKenzie, Owen Teague, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Jeannie Berlin, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross.
You Hurt My Feelings is a slight film that explores those little white lies that people often tell one another to appear supportive and to protect their feelings and the consequences that sometime follow. This is a universal theme that many in the audience will respond to.
Beth Mitchell (played by Seinfeld’s Julia Louise-Dreyfus) is a writer whose memoir about her difficult childhood has been a moderate success, but she is struggling to complete her follow up book, a work of fiction. She also teaches a course in creative writing and feigns interest in the writings of her students. Her supportive husband Don (British actor Tobias McKenzie, from tv series The Crown, etc) is a therapist who doesn’t seem able to make much headway with his troubled patients. Their 23-year-old son Eliot (Owen Teague, from It and It Chapter Two, etc) is an aspiring playwright who is trying to write his first play. He also works in a shop that sells marijuana.
One day while out shopping with her interior designer sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins, from Good Boys, etc) she overhears Don talking to a friend, admitting that he doesn’t think Beth’s new novel is any good. She is shaken by the revelation as he had told her that he likes her book. This admission creates a chill in their relationship, forcing the pair to confront their personal feelings and raises the issue of whether it is better to be cruel and honest or tell a little white lie to protect their feelings.
Meanwhile Sarah’s husband Mark (Arian Moayed, from tv series Succession, etc) is undergoing a personal crisis of his own as he is struggling to find roles.
You Hurt My Feelings is the seventh feature film for writer/director Nicole Holofcener (Walking And Talking, etc), a New York based filmmaker whose films are amiable comedies in a similar vein to those of another famous New Yorker in Woody Allen. Like his films, Holofcener’s low key comedies often explore middle class characters besieged by insecurities and flawed characters dealing with relationships and personal problems and often awkward situations that seem trivial in this modern world. This is not surprising as Holofcener’s stepfather was Charles Joffe, who produced many of Allen’s films, and, as a young girl, she often spent time on his film sets, and even appeared in small roles in a couple of his early films. Later on, she also worked on several of his films in different capacities, including editing Hannah And Her Sisters.
Her films always seem deeply personal and introspective and self-aware. Holofcener has always demonstrated an interest in exploring complicated relationships and the minutiae of daily life, and her flawed characters seem authentic. Her comedies are not laugh-out loud funny, although they deliver the occasional one-liner.
The ensemble cast all deliver solid performances. Louis-Dreyfus brings a suitably needy and quirky quality to her performance as the slightly insecure Beth, and her performance here ranks as amongst her best work. She again displays superb comic timing in a role written especially with her in mind. (Holofcener and Louis-Dreyfus previously collaborated on Enough Said). Veteran Jeannie Berlin (The Heartbreak Kid, etc) leaves an impression with her role as the sisters’ sharp tongued mother Georgia who is slowly beginning to show signs of dementia. Real life couple Amber Tamblyn and David Cross bring some comic relief to the material with their roles as a bickering couple who happen to be patients of Don’s.
Leisurely paced, You Hurt My Feelings is typical of Holofcener’s low key, perceptive and observational approach and sits comfortably in her milieu.
★★★
