You Hurt My Feelings (2023 | USA | 93 minutes | Nicole Holofcener)
Across three decades of directing and screenwriting Nicole Holofcener has long established herself as being incredibly good at making movies about grown ups with small problems that can also feel as big as the whole world. In her latest, the primary conflict is set off when Beth, a writing professor played with hilarious depth, dry humor, and sensitivity by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, inadvertently overhears her therapist husband’s (Tobias Menzies) opinion of the collection of short fiction she’s been struggling to get published. Despite having written a successful memoir and having a position teaching graduate seminars at a prestigious university, the realization that his validation of her work has been sweetened to spare her feelings incites a spiral of uncertainties about her own talents.
But the film is concerned with more than the ensuing rift in their heretofore successful partnership, albeit one that involves routine anniversary dinners in which they exchange very boring gifts. Meanwhile, Menzies’s psychotherapist character is given room to confront the trauma of being a handsome but aging man who’s not sure whether he’s still helping his clients (some of whom, hilariously raise the same questions). While the secret revelation forces her to re-appraise their entire relationship, Holofcener’s interests are far broader than the specifics one one person or one couple. The story is one of adults approaching the later stages of successful careers reckoning with self-doubts and the lingering effects of inter-generational expectations.
It sounds weighty, but is incredibly relatable while being a very comfortable and entertaining hang. With a supporting cast including Michaela Watkins and Adrian Moayed (whose interior designer wife and sensitive struggling actor marriage reflects similar themes, with different results) as well as the return of “that nineties haircut” from Owen Teague as a pot-selling son trying to live up to his mother’s praise, and a stable of indie comedian therapy clients, the film both takes all of their issues seriously while remaining light, funny, and moving at every turn. A very good film. No notes. (Really, I swear.)
An earlier version of this review ran when You Hurt My Feelings played in the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It opens this weekend in Seattle, including a run at the SIFF Uptown. Lead image courtesy A24.