Movie studios, sometimes you can hurt my feelings. Spending all that money on big special effects, humungous movie stars, and sales pitches is nice. But movies built around strong scripts are the stories that last. Consider You Hurt My Feelings a prime example. On the surface, it’s just a light romcom around Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies. But build that story around Nicole Holofcener’s words? You have something that blows a Netflix B- romcom out of the water with its brilliance.
Beth (Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Menzies) are still trying to escape midlife malaise. Therapist Don struggles to gain traction with his difficult clients, and Beth’s latest novel isn’t quite getting the reception she wants. Normally, Beth would shrug this off, but she overhears Don and her sister Sarah’s (Michaela Watkins) husband Mark (Arian Moayed) in a private conversation admit that Don doesn’t really like this book either, dragging Beth deeper into that malaise she’s trying to get out of.
As a kid, you grow up thinking all lies are bad lies. As an adult, Nicole Holofcener knows the answer to that question is much more complicated. Day to day living as an adult is an endless assault of decision making. Most people go about their day hoping to live the path of least resistance, giving answers to reach that goal. “Does this outfit make me look fat?” If you’re one of the lucky ones you can answer honestly, but if you know a supportive answer is the one your love wants to hear, that’s what you provide, regardless of your own opinion. Holofcener fills her whole movie with these day to day choices, then builds the whole story around that web of “white lies” being removed, leaving raw unfiltered honesty. And as much as Beth, Don, and others in their orbit act like that’s what they want, everyone isn’t exactly prepared for that sort of lifestyle either, as the more present disappointments leave everyone stressed, sad, and frazzled. Most importantly, trust has been threatened, meaning a prolonged period of time where slowly Beth and Don, because they love each other, have to try to build that trust back up again, if it’s possible. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies are excellent together and apart, perfectly capturing this journey every couple is going to have to go on in their lives at some point.
Holofcener’s wit doesn’t just apply to dialogue about lying to one another. She’s also cleverly captured what life in a rut looks like for a well off but still human person. At this point in Beth and Don’s life, they’re set when it comes to money, so the joys they get are in their career and with their friends and family. However, nothing seems to be going right anywhere. Beth’s book is getting “It’s good” with a high pitched ending, meaning that it’s not (another bad book in a row), and Don really can’t give any solid solution to his therapy patients, who start to blame him for their lack of return on investment, further messing with his head and making his advice worse. Beth’s sister Sarah and Mark are going through similar career ruts, and Beth/Don’s son Elliott (Owen Teague) is also in his quarter life crisis, and starting to place that blame for his indecision on his parents which doesn’t help matters either. Usually, when one part of life is sucking something out of you, the other parts come in and build you back up, but in ruts, everything drags you down, making your ability to pick yourself up harder without something drastic happening. Holofcener weaves in this “death by 1000 cuts” theme into Beth and Don’s predicament, lightly but effectively conveying how this “reveal” of the white lies was only a matter of time and really makes day to day grievances much, much more difficult to overcome.
In the summer of big blockbusters hoping to grab mostly teenage eyes, You Hurt My Feelings is a nice change of pace. It’s a great reminder that if you have a Nicole Holofcener script, you can get by with building a movie about hanging out with your friends and shooting the sh*t, while learning a little something along the way. Also, props to Michaela Watkins, who continues to rise up the post SNL ranks after her too short one season. Check out this gem, as a reminder.