You Hurt My Feelings: A Very New York Style Slice of Life and Comedic Angst
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B+
Ah, the New York comedy. It’s pretty much guaranteed that, no matter the details of the story, it will likely deal with angst-ridden relationships.
The characters are often successful or have been, live in wonderful New York apartments that look both well designed and comfortably lived in. Odds are at least one is working in the arts, at least one is in therapy, most are questioning their lives and battling their neuroses.
And, so, could there be a better, and more promising title for a New York comedy than You Hurt My Feelings?
Beth (Julia-Louis Dreyfus) feels her self-confidence slipping away in You Hurt My Feelings.
The film centers around Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). She’s a writer with a successful memoir to her credit, who is now teaching writing while working on her first novel. She’s married to Don, (Tobias Menzies) a psychotherapist, a lovely, quiet guy who seems to be pretty steady.
Their grown son Eliot (Owen Teague) lives with his girlfriend, works in a cannabis shop, and is maybe working on his own writing project. Or maybe he’s stalled out. Beth worries about him out loud, but is also reassuring and encouraging.
Beth spends a lot of her time with her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins), an interior decorator who is quick with the slightly caustic one-liners.
The two volunteer at the local church and spend time with their slightly offbeat mother Georgia, (Jeannie Berlin). Sarah is married to Mark (Arian Moayed), an actor in search of his next role, or his next career move. Mark radiates insecurity who spends time with Don. There’s a simpatico between the brothers-in-law and they confide in each other.
Beth and Don seem to have a solid and happy marriage. They have the standard issue New York comedy way of life: a comfortable apartment that’s not ostentatious, but speaks of a happy settled life.
Of course, it can’t go on this way forever, can it?
As Beth struggles with her novel, she’s buoyed by apparently sincere encouragement from Don. So, it comes as a total shock when she overhears Don telling Mark that he actually really dislikes the book.
For his part, Don has been quietly struggling with feeling old and insecure, after negative comments from patients and making no progress with a squabbling couple (Amber Tamblyn and David Cross).
Of course, as the movie goes on, everyone has something quietly nagging at them. Aging, relevance, how to maintain their living, relationships, trust, etc. Once Beth feels destabilized and the movie goes on, they come into sharper relief. People are led to question their choices and relationships going back years.
You Hurt My Feelings is written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, who was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing the adaptation Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), co-wrote The Last Duel (2021), and who wrote and directed Enough Said (2011), which also starred Louis-Dreyfus .
Holofcener knows how to write lean and subtly drawn movies about characters going through bumpy and complicated emotional territory.
She also directs with a light touch. In the grand tradition of New York comedies, You Hurt My Feelings, plays as natural, not overly fraught, despite all the insecurities and problems.
When you boil it down, we may not all be working on our first novel, but the dilemmas here feel familiar, ordinary things that most of us go through in one form or another.
While not an instruction manual, in an economical 93 minutes, You Hurt My Feelings is a lovely little encouraging slice of life. Problems happen. Interpretations create misunderstandings that muddy the view. Neuroses endure. But happily, and sometimes despite ourselves, progress happens.
You Hurt My Feelings, written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Owen Teague, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, and Jeannie Berlin, In theatres May 26.