3.5 stars out of 5
I’m feeling a bit self-conscious. This whole movie is about hurt feelings; what if writer/director Nicole Holofcener (“Who I’ve had drinks with,” said in my best Jon Lovitz voice) googles this review and finds out I didn’t think it was perfect, and then feels all sad?
Alas, like Lee Nails, I must press on. I really became aware of Holofcener a decade ago, with her feature Enough Said which starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the already late James Gandolfini. (Didn’t write a full review, but in these pages I said, “I found it so-so, with an absurd plot.”) And then in 2015 I may have had drinks and exchanged an email or two with Holofcener and Julianne Moore to discuss my friend Lee Israel and the eventual movie based on her memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? (with a different star and director, but still using Holofcener’s script).
But it’s another part of Holofcener’s past that informs the overall feel of You Hurt My Feelings. Her stepdad was longtime Woody Allen producer Charles Joffe, so Holofcener grew up on Woody’s sets, soon doing odd jobs and then earning credits on A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and Hannah and Her Sisters. And like Greta Gerwig and Sofia Coppola before her, this feels like Holofcener’s Woody Allen movie.
We have a middle-aged, upper-middle-class couple (Louis-Dreyfus again and, um, I want to say Brian Benben even though I know that’s not correct) in Manhattan, dealing with life’s white-people-problem humiliations. The film is rolling along in this light Woody-comedy way until we hit a Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque plot twist: Louis-Dreyfus, playing a writer, overhears her hubby saying he doesn’t actually like her new book. And her feelings are hurt!
Things never get too heavy, but the script allows us to think about the white lies we tell each other, and whether we genuinely love our chosen fields (especially after being critiqued). I just wish the movie were a little sharper, a little funnier, like, oh let’s say, peak Woody Allen. Louis-Dreyfus can do this sort of role in her sleep and is a pleasure to watch here. (Ooh that Veep was super sharp too, wasn’t it?) The only other actor with a standout performance is Owen Teague (who I really appreciated in Montana Story) as the couple’s underachieving, unlucky in love 23-year-old son.
Here’s what I’m thinking: One of those upcoming warm days, when everyone’s talking about how nice it is outside but you’d really rather stay inside — maybe even in the dark — catch a matinee of this, you’ll enjoy it.
Jack Silbert, curator