No lie here: This film is worth seeing
We’re not even halfway through the year yet, but I think I’ve just seen my Top 10 list’s number one pick. That contender is You Hurt My Feelings, a smart and often painfully funny picture about creativity and relationship dynamics that re-teams writer/director Nicole Holofcener with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Collaborating on their first project since 2013’s Enough Said, Holofcener and Dreyfus here prove that partnership’s success was no fluke. Dreyfus plays Beth, a writer struggling with her second book, a novel that will follow a well-received memoir. The film’s central conflict arises when Beth inadvertently overhears her otherwise loving and supportive therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies, The Crown’s middle-aged Prince Philip) telling her brother-in-law that he doesn’t like the draft Beth has written, much to her surprise and dismay.
Sure, this premise is rather simple and not exactly on the scale of a grand life or death drama, but the beauty of Holofcener’s film lies in its sheer relatability. Who among us hasn’t told a little white lie to preserve the feelings of a friend or loved one? Yes, that color looks great on you! No, you didn’t talk too much at that dinner party. We’ve all been there, done that. But what if we were to be found out? Would the social order fall apart? Would our relationship survive the truth?
Such are the questions Holofcener explores with both incisive honesty and empathetic humor. While Beth’s discovery of Don’s true opinion comprises the picture’s main storyline, Holofcener also rather brilliantly carries the theme over to the film’s supporting characters and other kinds of relationships. Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins, The Way Back; Brittany Runs a Marathon) consoles her bereft actor husband Mark (Arian Moayed, Successions’s Stewy) when he’s fired from a play, even though she knows he’s not always great. Then there are parental embellishments, as we see with Beth and Don and their 23-year-old son Eliot (Owen Teague, IT; Mrs. Fletcher), who resents his parents for decisions he perceives as shielding him from reality and they view as helping his confidence. And Beth and Sarah are careful to keep their annoyance at their prickly mother (Jeannie Berlin, The Fabelmans) relatively tamped down for the sake of family harmony.
Professional dissembling also occurs, particularly in the case of Don and his patients. Is he helping them as much as he thinks he is? Arrested Development’s David Cross, as one such patient, has some scene-stealing moments in which his character strongly answers that question with a resounding no. And Sarah, an interior designer, becomes disillusioned when the carefully selected decorative pieces she suggests for a client are rejected in favor of others she considers ridiculous. Even Beth, who teaches creative writing, finds herself placating her students’ more outlandish story ideas, in a hilariously sharp scene that anyone who’s ever taken a writing workshop will find all too accurate. Holofcener’s cast seems to fully understand the pathos of her screenplay, and their warm, funny, often exasperated performances ring true across the board.
All these instances — and a few more, including a character undergoing an eye lift to look younger — speak not only to the question of what constitutes a lie, but also to how much that lie should matter if it’s told out of encouragement or love — to another person, or to ourselves. When Don tells Beth, “You are not your book,” she’s not comforted. Our creativity is a part of us, and taste is subjective. So why should we care if anyone else likes our work? Holofcener offers no easy answers, but her film provides a terrific vehicle for contemplating the question.
This film would make a great double bill with Kelly Reichardt’s similarly themed Showing Up, which opened last month. At a minimum, watching both pictures may inspire you to start that novel or finish that painting. And if friends or family tell you they love what you come up with, do yourself — and them — a favor, and choose to believe them.
—————————-
You Hurt My Feelings opens today at Bay Area theaters.
