Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nicole Holofcener Re-Team for ‘You Hurt My Feelings,’ Which is Not for the Faint of Heart

May 24, 2023

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Will they hurt YOUR feelings? Let’s find out! (CREDIT: Jeong Park/A24)

Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague, Jeannie Berlin, David Cross, Amber Tamblyn, Zach Cherry

Director: Nicole Holofcener

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for Angry, Hurt, Occasionally Petty Adults Being Annoyed with Each Other

Release Date: May 26, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Don (Tobias Menzies) is a therapist with some crotchety patients who make him question his effectiveness. His wife Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a novelist and writing professor who’s struggling through her own neurotic insecurities. They’re close with her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and Sarah’s husband Mark (Arian Moayed), who are basically a less prickly version of Don and Beth. There are also check-ins with Beth and Sarah’s kooky mom Georgia (Jeannie Berlin) and Don and Beth’s grown son Elliott (Owen Teague), but it all hinges on the inciting incident of Beth accidentally eavesdropping on Don criticizing her latest book. And then it all unravels from there!

What Made an Impression?: As everyone’s emotions reached a fever pitch in You Hurt My Feelings, I wanted to scream, “Free yourself of the Good/Bad Binary!” Beth is so unrelentingly attached to the idea that she needs her husband to genuinely like her artistic output. He offers her unconditional emotional support instead, but that rings hollow to her, even though Don makes a convincing case for the fact that he might just not be the right audience for her. Quite frankly, this is what so many people need to hear. When it comes to art and creativity, there is no such thing as Objectively Good or Objectively Good. (Or at least, there’s no way to know those platonic ideals with absolute certainty.)

This is all to say, writer-director Nicole Holofcener has crafted quite the anxiety-inducing viewing experience. There are plenty of keenly observed character dynamics at play here that I’m sure will produce laughs in anyone who’s receptive to them in the right way. But instead of chuckling, I discovered that my innards were tied up like a pretzel that threatened to morph into bloating and constipation. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but instead an illustration of one particular emotional response to a deeply personal creative work. I didn’t exactly enjoy watching You Hurt My Feelings, but I appreciate it, and Holofcener has my full support.

You Hurt My Feelings is Recommended If You Like: Reading bad reviews

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Feelings

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Nostalgia’ Makes Some Obvious, Occasionally Affecting Points About Nostalgia

February 15, 2018

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CREDIT: Bleecker Street

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Jon Hamm, Catherine Keener, John Ortiz, Ellen Burstyn, Bruce Dern, James LeGros, Nick Offerman, Amber Tamblyn, Patton Oswalt, Annalise Basso, Mikey Madison

Director: Mark Pellington

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R for Language Apparently, But It Should Otherwise Be Rated PG

Release Date: February 16, 2018 (Limited)

Nostalgia, the 2018 film directed by Mark Pellington, would like you to know that nostalgia, the sentimality for the past, is a feeling that exists and that people experience. It does not treat this as some big revelation, as this is a common human emotion and the film does not pretend otherwise. But it is so simplistic and obvious, but also matter-of-factly profound, in its explication of the definition that there is this weird mix of pretension and lack of ambition. Mostly, Nostalgia glides along in a quiet, unfussy groove that is occasionally enlivened by tragedy and committed performances.

This is one of those anthology-style, “we’re all connected” movies with multiple discrete-but-actually-closely-connected(-at-least-thematically) storylines. Instead of cross-cutting between each vignette and having them dance around each other, they take their turns and then hand the ball (one time quite literally) off to the next one, with at least one shared character per section. At first it looks like Nostalgia will follow the travails of an insurance agent (John Ortiz) and the people he encounters. That’s a justifiable enough premise, but the execution is strikingly mundane.

The film eventually shakes out instead to more broadly be a series of sketches of people dealing with loss and holding on to and/or letting go of sentimental objects, which is even more nondescript than the insurance agent setup, but there are some dynamic moments. In particular, there is the scene with Ellen Burstyn as a widow selling her late husband’s autographed baseball to a professional collector (Jon Hamm). His appraisal delivers exactly the sort of human touch you want when parting with an item with such high monetary and emotional value. Hamm’s entire section, in which he and his sister (Catherine Keener) are hit with a great loss in the midst of cleaning out their father’s old stuff, is filled with understated power. Its setup is just as lightweight as the other storylines, but it delivers enough poignancy to make Nostalgia just worthwhile enough.

Nostalgia is Recommended If You Like: Jon Hamm swooping in to save the day, Emotional gut punches

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Verified Ted Williams Signatures