You Hurt My Feelings

In a summer film season that is typically fraught with big-budget, high adrenaline or animated flicks, we have been offered a small, independent, subtle comedy/drama in the form of "You Hurt My feelings". Once in a while, it's certainly refreshing to see a film for the pure art form as opposed to just sitting back and totally escaping into a film, which during this film season, the vast majority of films are the huge commercial ones.

Beth Mitchell (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a popular writer, and her husband Don (Tobias Menzies), a well-liked psychologist, share the kind of relationship that truly, seriously, for the love of God cannot be real: that is, they're actually in love. Even after decades of marriage, parenting, and their own successful careers, their physical spark has somehow not diminished. In fact, they seem to relish the opportunity to share a single ice cream cone and drive others--including their 23-year-old son, Eliot (Owen Teague)--mad. Should it come as a surprise then that their own marriage is in crisis? But when Beth discovers that Don has been untruthful to her about his opinion of her work for years--Beth's world comes crashing down. Has their whole relationship been a Big Fat Lie?

Others to round out the cast are Michaela Watkins as Sarah, Beth's sister, Arian Moayed as Mark, Sarah's husband, Jeannie Berlin as Georgia, Beth and Sarah's mom, Amber Tamlyn as Carolyn, David Cross as Jonathan, Zach Cherry as Jim, LaTalya Richardson Jackson as Sylvia, Sarah Steele as Frankie and Bryan Reynolds as Jared. 

This was directed with such subtlety and underlying emotions by Nicole Holofcener ("Walking and Talking" '96, "Lovely & Amazing" '01, "Friends with Money" '06, "Please Give" '10, "Enough Said" '13, "The Land of Steady Habits" '18) plus TV and a short. With the emotions in this, where they were consistently rising due to multiple issues by all, this filmmaker possessed the ability to showcase those underlying emotions which is difficult in order to convince your audience of the problems at hand that these characters were having to traverse. This certainly makes it more intense and volatile as opposed to making the characters over-the-top which is actually much easier. This was also creatively written by Nicole Holofcener ("Walking and Talking" '96, "Lovely & Amazing" '01, "Friends with Money" '06, "Please Give"'10, "Enough Said" '13, "Every Secret Thing" '14, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" '18, "The Land of Steady Habits" '18, "The Last Duel" '21) plus TV and shorts. Again, Holofcener wrote this film with a very subtle, yet realistic approach in that emotions, whether they be in the form of hurt, fear, humor or sadness, came off as realistic and always striving for approval by each and every character. Other than a couple of very small places of slowness, this screenplay was spot on. It would've been a bit nicer if it were a little funnier, but that probably would've taken away the powder dry effect I believe Holofcener was attempting to convey. The entire cast was certainly chosen well, but it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jeannie Berlin as her mom that really showcased their ability to hold the audience's attention. 

If you're solely into commercial, big-budget, high adrenaline type films, you'll very likely be lost with this, however if a well crafted film (acting, writing, directing) is more to your liking, you will revel and be right at home with this little gem. 

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                            Rated: R                                           93mins.