You Hurt My Feelings bursts out of the gate with four or five big laughs, then only adds emotional layers and dramatic complications from there. This is writer-director Nicole Holofcener—one of our most underrated filmmakers—working at the height of her incisive, observational powers, alongside her strongest onscreen collaborator. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the Seinfeld treasure who gave a revelatory dramatic performance in Holofcener’s Enough Said, stars as Beth, a published author struggling to find a path forward with her second book. She lives with her thoughtful and supportive therapist husband, Don (Tobias Menzies of The Crown), in one of those rarely dramatized arrangements: a happy marriage. Happy, at least, until Beth overhears Don confessing to someone that he really doesn’t care for Beth’s manuscript, despite all the praise he’s heaped upon it to her face. If this seems like low stakes for a movie, it’s more than enough for someone as intuitive about interpersonal relationships as Holofcener, who uses the setup to create a wise comedic drama about the necessary lies we tell each other (and ourselves). What’s more, Holofcener expands the narrative so that everyone in this cozy, privileged world is taken down a peg: Don seems to be slipping at work, confusing his clients; Beth’s sister (Michaela Watkins) has lost her passion for her home-decorating business; her actor husband (Arian Moayed) gets fired from a play. Everyone in the cast is excellent—Jeannie Berlin, another treasure, also drops in as Beth’s irascible mother, while David Cross and Amber Tamblyn nearly steal the movie as two of Don’s more demanding clients—but this is Dreyfus’ showcase. What’s remarkable about her here and in Enough Said is the way she retains the pacing and patter necessary for a sitcom—“Are we dead yet?” Beth blurts out when a dinner party devolves into a discussion of over-the-counter medications—while layering her line deliveries with the real-world naturalism that a feature like this requires. Louis-Dreyfus imbues a sitcom premise with an authentic ache, while still delivering her punchlines exactly on time. (Beth’s confrontation with Don about his white lie is a master class in this regard.) Enough Said was too “small” for her or her equally excellent costar, the late James Gandolfini, to get Oscar nods. I’d love to see it happen for her here.
(5/24/2023)
