You Hurt My Feelings
Directed by Nicole Holofcener
Running time: 1hr33 | REVIEWED BY GUY LODGE
Julia Louis-Dreyfus in You Hurt My Feelings
Nicole Holofcener makes intimate films about fairly ordinary things, mostly centred on women — which, in the unfairly gendered way of things, tends to get them labelled as “small” or “modest”. I imagine that might annoy her, though not enough to throw her off her game, nor out of her lane. Bar a rather surprising writing credit on 2021’s robust Ridley Scott epic The Last Duel, the writer-director has stuck confidently to the social bracket she knows so well — a subset of privileged but anxious white America, usually nested in New York — for the better part of 30 years now, gradually growing into one of its great, patient chroniclers. The rewards of her films are consistent: wittily perceptive, semi-dry writing; accordingly fine performances by actors glad of the calm and the closeup; a generosity of spirit that doesn’t cancel out a vinegary cynical streak.
That all goes, unsurprisingly enough, for her latest, You Hurt My Feelings: a very Holofcener title, pitched halfway between earnest empathy for her characters' fragilities and gentle mockery of same. The feelings in this case are those of Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a novelist and writing teacher who has had past success, but can't shake the feeling that the book she's just completed is below par. Her husband Don (Tobias Menzies), a therapist, assures her that it's great. Of course he does. But privately, he shares her misgivings, and confides as much to his brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed). Unbeknownst to them, Beth overhears their conversation, and the bottom quietly falls out of her world. It might not seem the greatest of crises — Holofcener is not for people who delight in dismissing "first-world problems" — but it tears the very fabric of their relationship. What kind of trust is more important in a marriage: that your partner will always be honest with you, or that they'll always be kind to you?
Creative types may find themselves watching this otherwise gentle, ambling film in something close to a cold sweat, as we recall the times we've lied to loved ones and colleagues about their work, or doubted their praise of ours. From this inadvertently broken social contract, Holofcener zooms out, just a little bit, to examine all the tacit silences and complicit untruths that make a long-term marriage. It's ruefully funny in the way that we expect from Holofcener — and from Louis-Dreyfus, unmatched since her stint on Seinfeld in spinning human insecurity into farce — but makes you wince a bit too, accumulating everyday social embarrassments like so much salt on a paper cut. Menzies' slightly reticent, top-button-done-up decency plays beautifully against his co-star's shaggy disarray; there's something moving in seeing how this couple's internal absences ultimately sustain each other, and something softly heartrending about the film as a whole. It's small, I suppose. But aren't we all?
YOU HURT MY FEELINGS (2023) Written by Nicole Holofcener | Shot by Jeffrey Waldron | Edited by Alisa Lepselter