There is something about the small drama about the middle classes and their first world problems that can be quite alienating to some. It’s true, the stakes of Nicole Holofcener’s new film You Hurt My Feelings may feel slight in comparison to some of the grander or headier themes of films currently in the release schedule, however the power of a film of this nature when it’s good is of course that we end up leaning in, empathising and wholly understanding the weight of the issues at hand. Holofcener performs this magic trick and even comments on the nature of the ‘first worldliness’ of it all with subtle tact and offers the possible minor nature of little white lies as the backbone for her thesis amidst this touching comic adult drama.
Holofcener as a film-maker has a clear focus on what makes people tick and the many unintentionally humorous ways we often come off as ridiculous, or in the case of this film in particular how our best intentions can sometimes lead to worse effects. In a long-term relationship of any kind the conversation of white lies comes up in my experience a lot more than we may at first realise. Whether they be large or small is also often the crux of these conversations, this is the case in Feelings with Julia Louis Dreyfus’s writer figure accidentally stumbling across a conversation of her husband Tobias Menzies as he talks with a friend about how despite his comments to herself in private, he actually does not especially like her new book that she is struggling to find a publisher for. Menzies is too going through his own personal conflicts as he struggles with his career as a therapist with multiple of his patients beginning to call him out across a series of scenes as to how disillusioned he has become with his job it seems and how they have grown disillusioned with him as their consol. In-fact it is these scenes with his clients Zach Cherry, David Cross and Amber Tamblyn that for me were the highlight of the film, even with it possibly being described as a sub-plot. The heart of the film being Dreyfus and Menzies struggles does of course work very well in its own right, Dreyfus and Menzies have excellent truthful chemistry in their romance and their pain and Holofcener’s screenplay is defftul and painfully funny, but these returns to Menzie’s office always for me brought the biggest laughs and the most thoughtful of insights. Dreyfus is certainly the lead of the film however, despite its initially surprising ensemble nature, and also serves as a producer. Her collaboration with Holofcener (the two of them working together again after the beautiful Enough Said) is a pairing that I certainly wish would reap more films and their work together here is the exact reason way. Perhaps it is the nature of the New York adult comic drama, however one can’t help but feel a similarity between Holofcener and Dreyfuss with Nora Ephron and Meg Ryan, in a writer-director finding their perfect vessel for their wry balance of comedy and heart.
Holofcener’s
commentaries on marriage, therapy and the book industry are all specific and splendidly
delivered, but with the film’s ensemble nature Holofcener too has time to craft
briefer but no less perceptive and humorous moments inside the world of mother-daughter
relationships and the life of the insecure actor, with Arian Moayed as Dreyfus’s
brother in law offering a broader part of the film with his incredibly funny
and quite sweet turn as a struggling performer, and with the incomparable
Jeanie Berlin stealing the film in regards to supporting turns with two
masterful scenes of awkwardness, tenderness and again, pained truth. Michaela
Watkins rounds out the ensemble further as Dreyfus’s sister and furthers the
level of talent that this film oozes on a performance level. Holofcener’s work
here is incredibly specific and the marvel of the film is that not a single
performer in the piece misses the precise tone of the words as penned and
directed.
A 8/10 that is compelling and is deft in its commentary and its perceptiveness, and often subsides the intelligence of its knowingness with humour that is just as funny as it is often touchingly truthful. There is a vulnerability and a surprising pathos to the interior perceptions these characters have of each other and how they clash and come to learn things about each other and themselves that Holofcener presents with a subtlety and slightness that makes this simple and effective adult drama equally comedic as it is truthful and painfully mirror-like. Dreyfus and Menzies are both incredibly strong, as is the rest of the ensemble, leading to a very wonderful comic film that to watch with a partner will most certainly offer the same effect as a Gone Girl or a Marriage Story– just in far less extreme matters one must obviously note.
NOT REALLY A SPOLIER – SPOLIER P.S. I sincerely believe Dreyfuss walking in with the earring tree may be one of the most horridly relatable, painfully funny moments of the year thus far.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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