Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a scene from You Hurt My Feelings, about a novelist whose longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
You Hurt My Feelings
Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies and Michaela Watkins
Classification N/A; 93 minutes
Opens in theatres May 26
Critic’s Pick
Watching Nicole Holofcener’s new film is akin to stepping inside a time machine, the dial set to 2013. It was an era before the streaming wars, with the theatrical market having just enough wiggle room to accommodate both blockbusters and original, lower-stakes movies that were made for discerning adults.
Back then, a movie like You Hurt My Feelings might have felt sharp, rewarding, satisfying. Today, though, it arrives with the force of a smack, a much-needed reminder of the almost forgotten pleasures of sitting inside a movie theatre, watching smart, funny people work through thorny, relatable problems on a distinctly human scale.
Holofcener’s latest focuses on the kind of characters who once found a home inside Woody Allen’s New York – or really the Manhattan of Holofcener’s own canon, which includes the gently prickly dramedies Enough Said, The Land of Steady Habits, Please Give, and Friends with Money. These are movies about wealthy people, comfortable in their Restoration Hardware-furnished homes, their personal dilemmas decidedly minor-key. But that doesn’t mean they are not also compelling, carefully crafted characters inhabiting warm and witty worlds. And when embodied by the finest comic performers working today, these well-to-do woe-is-me types cut through any shivers of privilege to deliver something wholly universal, and frequently hilarious.
Reteaming with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of Enough Said, Holofcener focuses her story on a couple who, on the surface, seem sickeningly perfect for one another. Beth (Louis-Dreyfus) is an author and creative-writing professor who is struggling with the umpteenth draft of her new book. Don (Tobias Menzies) is a therapist who is so checked out that he struggles to remember the backstories of his patients (which include a who’s-who of ace comic actors, including David Cross, Amber Tamblyn and Zach Cherry). Quickly, though, Beth and Don’s union is torn asunder after she overhears him telling a friend that, well, her new book just isn’t very good.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus,right, and Tobias Menzies in a scene from You Hurt My Feelings.Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Holofcener cleverly cues up this betrayal from an array of perspectives. Beth is just about ready to fall to pieces, while her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) can see the harm done and is quick to talk her off the ledge. Don, meanwhile, starts to rationalize his feelings in all sorts of ways, ranging from the understandable to delusional, with the quasi-sage counsel of his brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed), who is going through a confidence crisis of his own. In the midst of all this turmoil, Beth and Don must also deal with the self-doubts of their twentysomething son Elliott (Owen Teague), who is trying to write a novel of his own.
Nearly every performance here is excellent, a beautiful balance of nerves and neuroses. Louis-Dreyfus is a particular wonder to watch as Beth nosedives from proud wife, mother and author to grievously injured victim, while Saturday Night Live veteran Watkins and Moayed (perhaps best-known as Stewy from HBO’s Succession) provide as much comic relief as they do anxiety-stricken supporting panic. And while I wish dearly that Menzies was allowed to perform with his native British accent, the actor’s emotional shorthand with Louis-Dreyfus feels entirely, almost supernaturally organic, as if the two had spent the past several decades living together, with just one rather large secret left to fester between them.
There can be a shagginess to the story, a kind of rambling reach to expand Beth and Don’s world to all manner of peripheral characters, including an unnecessary detour exploring the relationship between Beth, Sarah and their mother Georgia (Jeannie Berlin, always welcome to do anything that she wants). But the entire production is carried with such an effortless air of pleasure and purpose that it becomes easy to forgive its writer-director with any minor narrative missteps – even if, or perhaps because, many of these moments feel like the byproduct of a screenplay’s first draft that Beth herself might have indulged in.
Try to also forgive the film’s terrible title, and you, too, can travel back to a relatively simpler cinematic time. After all, you wouldn’t want to hurt Holofcener’s feelings now, would you?
Barry Hertz