Film review: ‘You Hurt My Feelings’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
You Hurt My Feelings from director Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money) is a very amiable, low-key, Woody Allen-esque comedy/drama that looks at the white lies couples use to maintain domestic harmony and to keep insecurities at bay and what can happen when these lies are exposed.
The film is, to a large extent, built around the wonderful perky charm of its star Julia Louis Dreyfus. She plays semi-successful novelist and writing teacher, Beth Mitchell who is struggling to pull together her latest manuscript and beginning to doubt her abilities as a writer. At the same time her psychologist husband Don (Tobias Menzies) is starting to become disillusioned with his role and questioning whether he is actually helping his patients. The fact that some of his patients tell him to his face that he isn’t starts to raise his suspicions further. Meanwhile Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and her actor husband Mark (Arian Moayed) who is still clinging to his fading celebrity having starred in what’s described as ‘that pumpkin movie’, begin to question the direction their lives are taking. Constantly trying to reassure their partners that they’re actually leading productive and meaningful lives becomes that little bit trickier when one inadvertently reveals their true feelings.
This is a smart, likeable, at times very funny but slight film. It drifts through the characters’ comfortable middle-class lives and modest dramas at a leisurely pace only briefly hinting at anything traumatic. Even an armed robbery is only mildly threatening and really an excuse for an admittedly funny sight gag. While this film is a little tepid dramatically, that’s ok as just watching a comic actor like Julia Louis Dreyfus riffing and reacting with bemusement to others is enjoyable enough.
The rest of the cast provide decent support with Michaela Watkins often funny in the sort wise-cracking role Katherine Hahn usually plays. David Cross, who was about the funniest thing in what this reviewer considers the overrated Arrested Development, is also terrific as a bitter and cynical marriage counselling patient of Don’s.
At times, You Hurt My Feelings does feel a little like an episode of a witty indie tv comedy padded out to feature length but the fact that it’s a showcase for some fine comic actors should be enough to tantalise those yearning for some subtlety and wit amid today’s overblown spectacle cinema.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Comedy.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Nicole Holofcener.
Release date: 15th June 2023.
Running time: 93 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.