You Hurt My Feelings - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

We tell our friends and loved ones “little white lies” to spare their feelings quite often. A common one is where the wife asks the husband, “Do I look fat?”, to which we respond, “Of course not honey, you’re beautiful.” But what about the more complicated ones. Spouse: “I finally finished my new painting, do you like it?”. Child: “After all my hard work, why didn’t I get a good grade on my project?”. One of the latest A24 films, You Hurt My Feelings, explores the lies we tell each other to not only save someone we care about from being sad or disappointed, but the line when trying to be encouraging and helping becomes enabling. When a child’s inferior work is praised endlessly, even if they worked hard on it, that can have an alternative negative effect of thinking they always produce exceptional results when another teacher or eventually an employer wouldn’t accept it. From writer/director Nicole Holofcener who teams up again with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, this exploration of our relationships and the things we tell each other is an interesting and frequently humorous trip into the lives of two couples working through some of these issues. While this not overly complicated premise doesn’t result in a film that will make many critics favorites of the year lists, it is still a really good film that most audiences can enjoy. And hey, even if you go watch this film and tell me you hate it, You probably won’t Hurt My Feelings. But tell me this review is terrible, you might.

SYNOPSIS - A frolic through this episode of Kids Say The Darnedest Things (Adult Edition) starts in a therapy session, go figure. The therapist Don (Tobias Menzies) is speaking to a couple about their relationship issues, but they’re mostly bickering between themselves while he sits back and asks an occasional question. After Don encourages them to stop using so much contempt and express some more honest feelings, the husband bluntly spurts out. “Ok, here’s a more honest feeling. We’ve been coming here a long time . . and nothing changes.” The couple comment on how he’s looking tired and after brief “deer in the headlights” look, the scene cuts, we then see Don in the shower briefly, assumingly after work. Next we watch Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Don’s wife as she’s walking down the streets of New York City, she’s bringing donuts to a weed shop where her son Eliot (Owen Teague) is working. After he takes a donut, she asks how his writing is going, she tells her not to get excited, that he doesn’t even have a title yet and the screenplay immediately begins unraveling it’s themes as Beth responds without hesitation, “Are you kidding me? It’s going to be amazing.” As any supportive parent would declare to their child about virtually any new endeavor they begin.

Beth then goes to a small class of five or six students that she’s teaching, she’s apparently had a decent amount of success writing a memoir and as her class shares their writing ideas, to conclude she has them give themselves a round of applause, even though not all their ideas for writing seemed great. Next stop on this little train of lies is Beth and Don’s anniversary dinner, they eat and then give each other their anniversary gifts to which both of them absolutely love what they got. The screenplay cleverly weaves us through several scenarios of how we as humans will feign interest in, appreciation for or proclaim excellence in things that we may not think to be that great, or possibly ones to which we have no idea about. But late into the first act we finally sink our teeth into the real meat of the story when Beth comes into a store to surprise visit her husband and brother-in-law. As she overhears her husband saying he really doesn’t care for the latest book she’s been working on and the many revisions he’s been reading, he bluntly expresses his distaste for them and naturally this crushes Beth. As the tailspin begins of everything Beth thought she knew about the very good relationship she has had with her husband up until this point comes into question, we’re forced to turn the camera lens around and think about ourselves, our lives, our relationships, our lies and our truths in the context of what we’re watching. As Beth, Don and even Eliot explore these themes, although ultimately we’re mostly left empty handed on the takeaway, the exploration alone is enjoyable, amusing, and sometimes a bit bitter as You Hurt My Feelings leaves us with a few things to ponder over.

To start with, the direction of the film is perfectly adequate, maybe a bit above average, Nicole Holofcener, who also wrote the film, is able to successfully transfer the themes she wishes to discuss from the page to the screen, albeit without much flair. In terms of technical feats, this film isn’t really doing much of anything special. There’s no flashy camera work, no epic score or knockout performances, even though Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies are quite delightful together and have a terrific chemistry as an aging couple. But the main point where the film excels is the script, by the aforementioned writer/director Holofcener, she may not win any writing awards this year, but this is certainly among the better screenplays and dialogue to hit the screen as she fleshes out some of this complicated and nuanced material. While effectively utilizing the screenplay and characters, Holofcener doesn’t wear out her welcome and wisely keeps the runtime at just over a hour and a half to avoid much if any issues with the pacing. While her exploration of these themes are entertaining, fun and thought provoking, this makes for a reflective piece of cinema in the moment. But the film ultimately doesn’t have anything revolutionary or astounding to say and at the end of the day might end up being among those handful of good but forgettable films we get each year.

SUMMARY - This movie is solid in most senses of the term, it’s engaging and can be quite funny at times with the naturally amusing and charismatic Dreyfus leading the way. It’s well worth your time to seek out and it’s an easy watch, You Hurt My Feelings might not be among the best films of 2023, but I’m sure I’m not hurting anyone’s feelings in saying so.